Note about the Railroad Related Commercial and …• Original 2000 MPDF with the Associated...

Note about the Railroad Related Commercial and Industrial Resources in Kansas City, Missouri MPDF.

This document consists of the following:

• Original 2000 MPDF with the Associated Historic Context:

o The Evolution of Kansas City Railroad Freight Industry, 1859 – 1950, page 4 of this pdf,

Bookmark 1.

o Commercial and Industrial Businesses Located Near Rail Freight Facilities, 1865 – 1950,

page 11 of this pdf, Bookmark 2.

o Commercial and Industrial Architecture in Kansas City’s Railroad Freight Districts, 1869 –

1950, page 19 of this pdf, Bookmark 3.

• Amendment in 2010 to extend the Period of Significance from 1950 to 1970.

o The Evolution of Kansas City Railroad Freight Industry, 1859 – 1970, page 44 of this pdf,

Bookmark 4.

o Commercial and Industrial Businesses Located Near Rail Freight Facilities, 1865 – 1970,

page 56 of this pdf, Bookmark 5.

o Commercial and Industrial Architecture in Kansas City’s Railroad Freight Districts, 1869 –

1970, page 65 of this pdf, Bookmark 6.

- Cathy Sala Administrative Assistant

May 2018

NPS Form 10-900-b {March 1992)

United States Department of the Interior National Park Service

National Register of Historic Places Multiple Property Documentation Form

0MB No. 1024-0018

24 . ,·, ·,~ :·~ .. '\:_:·:: .. )

······-- ·---~.:-. ·.10~ This form is used for documenting multiple property groups relating to one or several historic contexts. See instructions in How to Complete the Multiple Property Documentation Form (National Register Bulletin 168). Complete each item by entering the requested information. For additional space, use continuation sheets (Form 10-900-a). Use a typewriter, word processor, or computer to complete all items.

JL New Submission Amended Submission

A. Name ofMultipl~ Property Listing

Railroad Related Historic Commercial and Industrial Resources in Kansas City, Missouri

B. Associated Historic Contexts

(Name each associated historic context, identifying theme, geographical area, and chronological period for each.)

The Evolution of Kansas City Railroad Freight Industry, 1859-1950 Commercial and Industrial Businesses Located Near Rail Freight Facilities, 1865-1950 Commercial and Industrial Architecture in Kansas City's Railroad Freight Districts 1869-1950

C. Form Prepared by

name/title Sally F. Schwenk. Historic Preservation Services L.L.C

street & number 818 Grand Avenue, Suite 11 SO telephone 816 \221-5133 ---------city or town _...;;K=ans=-"a=s ..... C __ i=ty.,__ _____________________ _ state MO zip code 64106

D. Certification

As the designated authority under the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966, as amended, I hereby certify that this documentation form meets the National Register documentation standards and sets forth requirements for the listing of related properties consistent with the National Register criteria. This submission meets the procedural and professional requirements set forth in 36 CfR Part 60 and the Secretary of the Interior's Standards and Guidelines for Archeology and Historic Preservation. [ ] S? n 10n sheet for itional com nt .

State or Federal agency and bureau

ion form has been approved by the National Register as a basis for evaluating related properties for

Date

=============-

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NATIONAL REGISTER OF HISTORIC PLACES CONTINUATION SHEET

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Section E Page 1 Railroad Related Historic Commercial and Industrial Resources in Kansas City, Missouri Jackson County, Missouri

E. Statement of Historic Contexts

PREFACE

Kansas City, Missouri became, in the last half of the nineteenth century, one of the nation's major railroad hubs. The city's central location made it an ideal division point for nearly all of the nation's rail lines. An immediate consequence of the city's link to the national transportation and service corridors was local and regional industrial development, commercial growth and a rapid growth in population. The growth and evolution of the city's terminal facilities reflected Kansas City's dominance as a national rail hub. Their location within the city also determined the pla~ement of factories, wholesale houses and the speed and ease with which freight and passenger traffic could be handled. 1 "Railroad Related Historic Commercial and Industrial Resources in Kansas City, Missouri" represent a unique body of property types located near freight lines, depots and terminals which evolved as a result of Kansas City's role as a national railroad hub. These buildings and structures have significant associations with the history of local, state, regional and national commerce, industry and transportation. In Kansas City, distinct commercial/industrial districts emerged adjacent to rail lines along the river flats-areas that had a gradual rise and fall in grade. Today, four distinct areas still remain: 1) the original river landing "Old Town" area east of the Hannibal Bridge; 2) the West Bottoms, a low area west of the city's business center where the Kaw (Kansas) and Missouri rivers merge; 3) the MidTown "Crossroads Area" north of the 1914 Union Station Terminal, and 4) the Blue River Valley in the eastern part of the city roughly bounded by Independence Avenue on the north and U.S. 40 Highway on the south. [Figure l.] Each of these areas contains unique collections of commercial and industrial property types including manufacturing and processing facilities, industrial and commercial warehouses, energy and communication facilities, agricultural storage facilities, rail-related and road-related structures and objects, office buildings, financial institutions, government buildings, specialty stores, hotels, saloons arid restaurants. A large number of the resources share a continuum of architectural styles dating from the late 1870s to the post-World War II time period. As a whole they have associations with the evolution of the city's industrial and commercial development and, because of the integrity of their character defining features, serve as tangible symbols of the impact of the railroad on Kansas City evolution from AngloAmerican frontier settlement to a nationally significant rail center.

HISTORICAL CONTEXTS

The Evolution of Kansas City Railroad Freight Industry, 1859- 1950 Commercial and Industrial Businesses Located Near Rail Freight Facilities, 1865-1950 Commercial and Industrial Architecture in Kansas City's Railroad Freight Districts, 1869-1950

William H. Wilson, The City Beautiful Movement in Kansas City (Kansas City, MO: Lowell Press, 1990), 91.

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Railroad Related Historic Commercial and Industrial Resources in Kansas City, Missouri Jackson County, Missouri

THE EVOLUTION OF KANSAS CITY RAILROAD FREIGHT INDUSTRY, 1859 - 1950

KANSAS CITY'S EVOLUTION FROM RIVER TO RAIL TRANSPORTATION: 1859 - 1869

During the last half of the nineteenth century and into the first decades of the twentieth century, the railroad revolutionized America, expanding settlement, trade, commerce, and communication networks. In Missouri, railroad construction captured the interest of public leaders as early as the 1840s. It was not, however, until the 1850s that economic growth made financing of rail lines feasible. At that time, supporters of a transcontinental railroad system influenced the Missouri General Assembly to fund a state program of railroad construction. The first bonds, issued in 1851, provided loans to construct a rail line from Hannibal to St. Joseph and a line from St. Louis to western Missouri. Despite these initial efforts, difficulty in selling bonds coupled with waste and corruption slowed construction and, four years later, there was less than 100 miles of track in the state. By the onset of the Civil War, railroad companies added an additional 700 miles of track. Immediately after the war construction sped up and, between 1865 and 1870, various companies added another 2,000 miles oftrack.2

The development of rail lines in Kansas City mirrored that of the state. Strategically located at the confluence of the Missouri and Kaw (Kansas) rivers, Kansas City, Missouri stood poised at the end of the Civil War to be a major center for trading and overland outfitting activities. Formally organized in 1850, the town was a thriving river port with a nucleus of community leaders determined to dominate economic development in the region through the establishment of their community as a major railroad center.

The effort to provide continuous railroad service between Kansas City and St. Louis began in 1859 when representatives of the Missouri Pacific Railroad asked the Jackson County Court3 to issue railroad bonds for construction of rail lines. Although construction began in the area the next year, it was not until after the Civil War that rail service linked the two cities. Anticipating completion of the Missouri Pacific line across Missouri, construction began in 1864 on a line to Lawrence, Kansas -- the first railroad to be built west from Missouri. In 1864 the Kansas Pacific entered Kansas City, followed in 1865 by the Missouri Pacific. In the eastern part of Jackson County, the Kansas City, Independence and Lexington Railway Company, a rail line formed in 1867, built a narrow gauge railroad to Sedalia by way ofLexington.4

Even before the Civil War, it was evident that the municipality in western Missouri or eastern Kansas that secured a· bridge across the Missouri River that tied in with northern railroad routes through Chicago would dominate regional rail traffic. Federal legislation in 1862-63 to create a transcontinental railroad system left the choice of a Missouri River terminus open. Leavenworth, Kansas; St. Joseph, Missouri; and Kansas City, Missouri emerged as the main contenders. Through a complex series of political maneuvers affecting St. Louis rail interests and contacts

2 Perry McCandless, A History of Missouri Volume II 1820-1860 (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1972), 146; and Theodore Brown, A Frontier Community: Kansas City to 1870 (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1963), 116-117. 3 The Jackson County Court was an administrative body. 4 George W. Lund, Lund and Associates/AJA/Architects and Sarah F. Schwenk, Historical Research and Management Services, "Chicago and Alton Depot Independence Missouri Evaluation and Feasibility Study" (Kansas City: American Institute of Architects Kansas City Chapter, July 1993), 7-8.

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with Boston financiers associated with the Burlington lines west out of Chicago, the Kansas City business community secured financing for the bridge. The opening of the Hannibal Bridge near Kansas City's commercial center in 1869 effectively linked the city to the great trading networks of St. Louis and Chicago and to the markets of the Southwest.

The new rail traffic drew people to the West along passenger lines and freighting services offered both import and export trade opportunities. Kansas City rapidly became a "shipping hub" between the eastern and western regions of the United States. Just as the populous East required the agricultural products of the West, the growing communities of the developing West required the manufactured goods of the East. 5

An immediate consequence of the city's link to national transportation and service corridors was local and regional industrial development, commercial growth and a rapid growth in population. Prior to the Civil War the city's population stood at about 3,000. By the completion of the Hannibal Bridge, the figure increased to over 25,000. That number more than doubled during the next decade. 6

RAILROAD DEVELOPMENT ALONG THE TOWN OF KANSAS "OLD TOWN AREA"

The access to primary rail lines and the growing local agricultural businesses, particularly those relating to grain and livestock, placed Kansas City on the verge of becoming a national center for livestock and grain trade. Related industries, such as meatpacking and milling, rapidly emerged as a result of the city's new economic environment. In less than a decade rail construction, warehouses, granaries, brokers offices, and manufacturing concerns crowded the area surrounding city's original rails on the south bank of the Missouri River near the Hannibal Bridge. [Figure 2.] Originally platted as "Old Town" the area7 adjacent to the Levee on the south bank of the Missouri River and immediately east of the Hannibal Bridge was the first platted parcel of the Town of Kansas and is an area that enjoys continual commercial use since 1839. Included in the area was the original town square site, city market, cemetery, Board of Trade, and early government buildings as well as warehouses, commission agents offices, retail establishments, hotels, saloons, and small manufacturing concerns. Originally aligned toward the Missouri River, the coming of the railroad in 1869 changed the orientation of Old Town and of industrial development. Kansas City's government, business and retail center, like those in many river towns, turned away from its first business district on the levee and moved inland.

The Hannibal Bridge's location on the Missouri River levee near the city's original river landing was a logical place to link the rail lines that entered the city along the East Bottoms8 on the southern banks of the Missouri River to the West Bottoms along the Kaw River. The new bridge funneled its track to the West Bottoms via a deep cut at the western end of the levee, committing this area to railroad use and to industry dependent upon rail service. 9 As

George Ehrlich, Kansas City, Missouri. An Architectural History 1826-1990 (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1992), 29-31. 6 Wilson, 194. 7 The "Old Town Historic District" was listed on the National Register of Historic Places June 7, 1978. 8 Prior to the construction of the Hannibal Bridge railroad lines entered the city from the east along low-lying areas with a gradual rise in grade. The river front area east of the Old Town was called the "East Bottoms." 9 Ehrlich, 29.

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a result, commercial and industrial concerns began to spread westward from the old levee on the south side of the Missouri River to the flats between the city's western bluffs and the Kaw River.

Many businesses utilizing the available rails, continued to operate in the Old Town area. And new manufacturing concerns, such as the Peet Brothers Soap manufacturing company, continued to locate in the area. Old Town continued to function as a warehouse and light-manufacturing district throughout the late nineteenth century. During this period a number of large warehouse and distribution businesses erected large loft style buildings in the area. After a disastrous flood in 1903, many retail and commercial businesses rebuilt further south and the residential population of the area declined. During this period the area became essentially an industrial and warehousing district with a number of brick commercial buildings erected during the first decades of the twentieth century. 10

RAILROAD DEVELOPMENT IN THE WEST BOTTOMS

Four years before completion of the Hannibal Bridge in May 1865, Kansas City's Journal of Commerce predicted that the base of business in Kansas City would move from the levee to the river bottoms in "West Kansas,"11

[Figure 2.] The comment reflected what Kansas City's commercial leaders knew -- development ofrail lines in the city would be concentrated along the natural gradients in the flood plains. These areas included the landing levee, the East Bottoms along Missouri River and the West Bottoms on the Kaw River. In anticipation of this, the Kansas City, Missouri City Council voted in 1865 to issue $60,000 worth ofbonds to finance opening Third, Fourth, Fifth and Twelfth Streets from the city's commercial district into the West Bottoms. 12

In 1867 the Missouri & Pacific and the Kansas & Pacific railroads erected their depot and a hotel called the State Line House in the Bottoms. A year later, Octave Chanute, the architect/engineer who designed the Hannibal Bridge, selected a site in the West Bottoms for the depot for the Kansas City & Cameron Railroad, the line which linked the city via the Hannibal Bridge to the Hannibal & St. Joseph Railroad .. 13

The establishment of the West Bottoms as the city's primary industrial district began in earnest a few years later in 1868. That year the Hannibal and St. Joseph Railroad agreed to ship Texas Longhorn cattle to Chicago meatpackers from holding pens in Kansas City. After that, the movement of cattle through Kansas City to eastern markets grew so rapidly that in the two years thereafter, the railroads running eastward from Kansas quickly built new stock yards for receiving and transfer of stock. 14 By 1870, 100,000 head passed through the railroad handling yatds. 15

10 Sherry Piland, "Old Town Historic District" National Register Nomination Form. The district was listed in the National Register of Historic Places on June 6, 1978. 11 Also initially called "the flats" as well as the "West Bottoms," the name of the area officially changed in the 1930s to the Central Industrial District. 12 Ehrlich, 29. 13 Ibid. 14

• The History of Jackson County, Missouri (Kansas City, MO: Union Historical Company, Birdsall, Williams & Company, 1881), 496. 15 Sherry Lamb Schirmer and Richard McKinzie," At the River's Bend A History of Kansas City, Independence and Jackson County (Woodland Hills, California: Windsor Publications Inc. in association with the Jackson County Historical Society, 1982), 44.

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In 1878, eight cooperating rail lines replaced Chanute's earlier utilitarian stationhouse with a three-story, Second Empire style station known as the Union Depot. The new station firmly established the West Bottoms as the city's and the region's primary manufacturing and distributing center. 16 Kansas City was not unique in its need for new rail facilities at this time. The 1880s ushered in a period of national railroad rivalry and depot expansion. During this decade Missouri railroad mileage increased to approximately 4,000 miles. Competing lines built their own depots and it was not unusual for some small towns to end up with three or four depots. Larger cities, like Kansas City, often included one or more union terminals. 17

A serious national depression in 1893 interrupted this progress. The depression, brought on, in part, by railroad competition and speculation, forced rail companies to consolidate their resources during the next decade, an effort that increased the efficiency of rail operations. The "economy of scale" brought on by consolidation also freed more funds for the construction of a single, monumental central "Union" stations. By 1900, most of the nation's nineteenth century depots and stations were obsolete. The growth of rail lines, the high number of passengers and freighters served and the widespread changes in technology, such as the use of electricity in urban centers, changed the operation of railroads. A new wave of depot construction ensued. 18

Kansas City's Union Depot reflected this trend. Constructed to manage passenger and freight traffic for an estimated regional population of 59,000, the Union Depot in Kansas City's West Bottoms faced the demands ofa population that, by 1890, exceeded 171,000 and by 1910 escalated to 330,712. 19 At this time, 150 passenger trains went in or out of the Union Depot daily, while the nearby freight yards handled more than 22,000 cars every twenty-four hours. 20

The burden of the growing freight business and passenger traffic increasingly disrupted train schedules and the efficient operation of the rail lines in the East Bottoms. The demands on a facility designed to serve a population about one-fifth its current size, the ongoing deterioration of the Union Depot and the limitations of its site prompted civic leaders to lobby the Union Depot Company to construct a new rail terminal.

One of the greatest barriers to an improved and enlarged station was its location. Those traveling on rail lines arriving at the West Bottoms' depot encountered the stench of livestock pens, processing plants and manufacturing concerns. Shanties and trash filled the ravines along the bluffs. But, more important than passenger sensibilities was the small size of the rail facilities and the site's inability to meet the growing demand for additional rail services.

16 Ehrlich, 29-31. 17 Hans and April Halberstadt, The American Train Depot and Roundhouse (Osceola, WI: Motorbooks International Publishers, 1995), 79. 18 Ibid. 19 Wilson, 194. Other sources cite the 1910 figure at 248,381; and A. Theodore Brown and Lyle W. Dorsett, K. C.: A History of Kansas City, Missouri (Boulder: Pruett Publishing Company, 1978), 183. 20 Stanley B. Parsons, "Railroad Hub," At the River's Bend A History of Kansas City, Independence and Jackson County, Sherry Lamb-Schirmer and Richard McKinzie (Woodland Hills California: Windsor Publications Inc. in association with the Jackson County Historical Society, 1982), 43.

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Bounded on two sides by riverbank and susceptible to flooding, the area contained, by the mid- l 880s, about all the tracks it could accommodate.21

THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE UNION STATION

The Union Depot Company, comprised primarily of out-of-town business concerns, responded to the situation with tedious deliberation. The flood of 1903 forced them to act and influenced their decision to seek a location for a new depot away from the river bottoms and levee areas. They turned to an area to the southeast near a small station constructed in 1889 on Grand Avenue that served the Kansas City Belt Railway.22 [Figure 2.] By early 1905, the Kansas City Star reported that all interested railroads agreed upon the location and cost of a new depot.23

Nevertheless, a year later, dissention among the members and the delay in proceeding with construction of a new depot, prompted six railroads to separate from the Union Depot Company and announce their intention to build a new station south of the city's retail district. Further negotiations ended with the July 10, 1906 merger of the

· renegade lines, the Union Depot Company, and the Kansas City Belt Railway Company into one company-- the Kansas City Terminal Railway Company. Twelve rail companies now owned equal shares of the new corporation's stock that, with two subsidiary companies, included all of the lines then entering Kansas City.24

The new company proceeded with plans to acquire a 44 acre site near Twenty-third and Main streets. The site's broad expanse of ground could accommodate a large number of tracks and was not prone to flooding. It was near the city's commercial district and nearby residential enclaves and accessible to the West Bottoms' rail yards.25

Moreover, it included rails installed earlier by the Kansas City Belt Railway Company that ran east out of the Bottoms through a cut to the proposed site. 26

In 1906, the railroad executives approved preliminary plans for the station. Proceeding with the project required an amendment to the city charter that addressed such issues as construction of viaducts, rights-of-way and improvements to the station's surroundings. Negotiations between the railroad companies and the city council continued for the next three years. On July 7, 1909, the council approved the final plan, granting the Kansas City Terminal Railway Company a 200 year franchise, authorization to run "through" tracks, assigning the company liability for all land damages and responsibility for constructing 26 viaducts and 11 subways as well as an adjacent park. The following September, city voters approved the plan.27

Designed and constructed according to the plans set forth by Jarvis Hunt and approved by the city, the Union Station Terminai28 opened, after much delay, on October 30, 1914. The station and its facilities were impressive, reflecting the Kansas City Terminal Railway Company's ambitious plan for a new terminal that combined freight

21 Kansas City Star, December 1, 1926. Obituary of Col. Charles F. Morse. Kansas City Star Clipping Scrapbook. Missouri Valley Room Special Collections. Kansas City;Missouri Public Library. 22 The depot was located near what is today 22nd Street and Grand Boulevard. 23 Wilson, 97. 24 John A. Droege, Passenger Terminals and Trains (New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, Inc., 1916), 92-93. 25 Wilson, 91, 197; and Brown and Dorsett, 168. 26 These lines became the artery of the new terminal. Kansas City Star, December 1, 1926. 27 Wilson, 198. 28 The Kansas City Union Station was listed in the National Register of Historic Places on February 1, 1972.

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and passenger operations and provided convenient access to local interurban rail lines and trolleys. John A. Droege, in his classic text on designing train terminals, commented on the undertaking,

The natural topography of Kansas City is so unfavorable for comprehensive railway development and the number of railways to be served so great that the construction of the passenger station was but part of an enormous scheme of freight and passenger terminal development the total cost of which was approximately $40,000,000. The final cost of the terminal building alone was $11, 000, 000. 29

.

The construction of the Union Station and its surrounding support services reoriented how the city functioned and stimulated additional development, particularly in the area around the station. The "bottoms" continued as a major industrial and rail shipping area after the opening of the Union Station. As late as 1926 the location's rail shipping facilities were considered unequaled anywhere. At this time trackage in the West Bottoms totaled 14 7 miles and all twelve of the trunk line railroads serving Kansas City retained freight terminals and stations in the bottoms, all located within a half-mile radius and on an all-level haul. 30

RAILROAD FREIGHT LINES IN THE CROSSROADS AREA

During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, what became known as the Crossroads Area emerged as a commercial center serving rail-reliant commercial and industrial businesses.31 The area, roughly bounded by Broadway on the west, Grand A venue32 on the east, 15th Street (Truman Road) on the north and the railroad tracks serving the Union Station on the south, included access to the an ~lignment of railroad tracks south of 22nd Street. [Figure 3.] Of particular importance in the establishment and evolution of commercial and industrial businesses in the Crossroads Area was the construction of three railroad facilities: the Chicago-Milwaukee & St. Paul Freight Depot, constructed in 1888 at 22nd Street and Baltimore; the Grand Avenue Station, constructed by the Kansas City Belt Railway in 1889-90, near 22nd Street and Grand (now demolished); and the Union Station, which opened in 1914.

The earliest development in the Crossroads Area dates to the 1880s. During this decade a real estate boom prompted the construction of the Grand A venue Railway cable car along Grand A venue and Main Street, linking commercial and residential districts between the city market and Westport. 33 Along this route commercial and residential development occurred. The construction of the Grand Avenue Station and the Chicago-Milwaukee & St. Paul Depot in the late 1880s spurred industrial development south of 20th Street. Southwest Boulevard, which connected Kansas City, Missouri, to Rosedale, Kansas, (now part of Kansas City, Kansas) was another area of early

29 Droege, 93. 30 Melanie A. Betz, "Central Industrial District Survey Final Report" (Kansas City, MO: Kansas City, Missouri Landmarks Commission, 1988), 15. 31 Sherry Piland and Ellen J. Uguccioni, "Midtown Survey" (Kansas City, MO: Kansas City, Missouri Landmarks Commission, 1984), 20. 32 Renamed Grand Boulevard in the 1990s. 33 Ibid., 18.

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development in the Crossroads Area. The boulevard paralleled Turkey Creek and, later, railroads tracks running from Union Station west to the yards near the state line.

The announcement of plans in 1905-06 for a new Union Station further stimulated new construction south of 20th Street near the concentration of warehouses and manufacturing facilities erected during the previous two decades. 34

Commercial and industrial development gradually expanded north toward 1 ih Street as the station neared completion. While construction activities slowed during World War I, the pace of new construction between the close of the war and the start of the Great Depression matched that seen earlier in the decade.

The appearance of the Crossroads Area changed considerably as a result of the construction of the new station. The station site, at the intersection of Twenty-fourth and Main streets was an ugly wasteland.cut by a meandering open sewer named O.K. Creek. A few warehouses fed by the "belt line" stood nearby. Main Street, a bumpy wagon rut over the "belt line" tracks, led nowhere. The site presented practical challenges. Street and trolley crossings frequently were "at grade" with the proposed rail lines. Existing viaducts over the tracks were narrow, iron structures unable to carry heavy traffic. The existing land uses and infrastructure ( or lack thereof) required the construction of additional viaducts and subways -- a number in the immediate vicinity of the station. 35

RAILROAD DEVELOPMENT IN THE LITTLE BLUE RIVER VALLEY

The demand for manufactured goods created by a growing regional and national population triggered expanded manufacturing and warehousing facilities in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The opening of the . Kansas City Bolt and Nut Company in 1887 marked the beginning of an industrial district in the Blue River Valley on Kansas City's eastern boundary. [Figure 4.] Commercial growth in the area was slow. Businessmen hesitated to erect plants in the river's flood plain. It was not until after the construction of massive levees and creation of drainage districts after 1903 flood that investors turned eastward to this underdeveloped industrial and freighting area.36

The faith in flood protection efforts made the Blue Valley suddenly attractive to investors. Between 1905 and 1909 over 30 plants located in the Blue Valley. A high number of the manufacturing concerns locating in the area involved metal processing industries such as foundries, boiler making plants, and wire and structural steel fabricators. Developers named parts of the valley after English steel towns, designation of industrial enclaves such as Sheffield, [Figure 5.] Leeds, Birmingham and Manchester signify their involvement in metal works.37 By 1925, the following railroad companies had freight facilities in the area: Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul; Chicago and Alton; Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe; Missouri Pacific; Kansas City Terminal Railroad's Blue River Yard; and, later, the Kansas City Southern Railroad. All with existing lines in other freight centers in the city.38

34

35

36

37

38

Ibid., 25. Wilson, 98. Schirmer, 49. Ibid., 41-47. Information derived from review of various historic maps and atlases from different archival and research repositories.

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COMMERCIAL AND INDUSTRIAL BUSINESSES LOCATED NEAR RAIL FREIGHT FACILITIES, 1865-1950

The expansion of rail transportation, industrialization rapidly intensified after the end of the Civil War. Production needs during the war stimulated a shift from animal or waterpower to steam driven machines that produced growing quantities of textiles, boots and transportation equipment. The shift to peacetime production was a natural consequence of the return to prosperity after the war. By the 1870s, the nation's urban populations were large-scale consumers of manufactured and processed goods. The abundance of cheap factory made items meant that even families of modest means could afford to purchase a variety of ready-made goods. Concurrently, the growing number of prosperous farmers in the West created a thriving market for eastern goods while newly mechanized western farms and large ranches in the southwest supplied the grain and meat to feed the swelling urban populations of the East. By the 1880s, the growing number of brick factory buildings throughout the East and Midwest testified to the nation's rapid industrialization. 39

Thus, in addition to the role of Kansas City as a railroad center, the city's economic development was very much the product of the bounty of the region and its strategic location. The city received what farmers harvested and stockmen raised in the surrounding area -- livestock, grain, timber, seed -- passed them on or processed them into products people needed locally or, for an additional fee, shipped them to competitive eastern markets. At the same time the city's business concerns received the manufactured and processed goods from the East, stored them (for a fee) and reallocated them ( for a fee) to markets in the West. 40

A tremendous increase in population accompanied the emergence of Kansas City in the post-Civil War period as a major manufacturing and railroad distribution center for the products of the plains. The boom economy of the 1880s and the influx of native born and foreign immigrants affected Kansas City as it did other urban centers in the final decades of the nineteenth century. The city's population expanded ten-fold between 1870 and 1910, reaching nearly 200,000. The greatest growth in this period occurred between 1880 and 1887 when the population doubled to 125,000, creating a need for expanded city services as well as causing substantial physical changes in the community. During this period, commercial, manufacturing and residential development became more clustered and grew in density.41

LIVESTOCK INDUSTRY

As early as 1870, by virtue of its central location and rail connections, Kansas City became a terminus for the cattle trade. The development of this industry had its roots in the condition of the national cattle market at the end of the Civil War. Longhorn cattle herds, many of which suffered from parasites and diseases, crowded the ranges of the Southwest. Soon, stockmen began driving these herds to rail junctures almost 800 miles to the northeast in central Missouri for shipping to packing houses in Chicago. Missouri farmers and livestock owners along the trails, fearing

39 Carol Rifkind, A Field Guide to American Architecture (New York: Times Mirror New American Library, 1980), 273; Schirmer, 47; and Rick Montgomery and Shirl Kasper, Kansas City An American Story (Kansas City, MO: Kansas City Star Books, 1999), 108. 40 Schirmer, 47. 41 Ehrlich, 43.

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contamination of their own herds, opposed the trail drives and, as a result, incidents of open hostilities occurred. Noting these conditions and the progress of the Kansas Pacific Railroad stretching west from Kansas City, entrepreneur Joseph G. McCoy, established, in 1867, a stock yard in Abilene, Kansas, then a primitive railhead settlement. The Kansas Pacific Railroad agreed to pay McCoy a $5 commission for every cattle car that proceeded eastward and the Hannibal and St. Joseph Railroad, in tum, agreed to ship the stock from Kansas City to Chicago meatpackers. McCoy's depot for cattle provided a route for the southwest cattlemen through the sparsely populated Indian Territory and Kansas countryside away from the ire of Missouri stockowners. It also cut hundreds of miles off the cattle drive.42

The large number of cattle passing through the Kansas City rail yards soon required services beyond what railroad employees or the shippers accompanying the stock could provide. The volume of cattle required a middleman, a commission agent, to whom an owner consigned his stock and who guaranteed they received the proper care and arrived in Chicago fit for the auction block. There was also a need for coordinated management of the scattered railroad stock pens. In 1871, cattle dealers formed the Kansas City Stock Yards Company43 converted a 1544 acre parcel on the Kansas side of the West Bottoms into a unified stockyards operation and erected an exchange building where business could be efficiently transacted. 45

Initially the stockyards served only as a way station where stockmen unloaded cattle shipped from Kansas to water, feed and rest before the final leg of the journey to Chicago's slaughterhouses. At this time the value of this trade was $3 million per year in Kansas City alone. It was not long before buyers and sellers recognized the advantages of Kansas City as a destination market. The city's stockyards were the closest point to the southwestern ranges - a convenient place where eastern buyers looked over the stock and met with western ranchers.46 As early as 1878, the West Bottoms' stockyards extended into Missouri to a "goose neck" hemmed in by the Kaw River and the bluffs to the east. Two years later ten rail lines delivered stock to the West Bottoms and nearly a million animals passed through on their way to Chicago. Traders in horses, hogs and mules soon joined the cattle dealers. The enormous volume of livestock business transacted prompted the founding of the Livestock Exchange in 1886 to regulate the dealings of stockmen, suppliers, railroad representatives, commission agents, buyers, and bankers.47

It was not long before meatpacking plants located near the stockyards and the city became a terminus for the shipment of cattle. 48 The advent of meat processing coincided with the beginning of a "stocker-feeder" livestock market in the city. At this time many of the large cattle ranches in the Southwest began conversion into more diversified farming and livestock operations. At the same time, new and smaller livestock operations appeared in the areas to the west and northwest of Kansas City. These smaller stock ranches shipped enough cattle to Kansas City to establish it as the nation's second-largest livestock marketplace and the largest in sale of "stocker-feeders"-animals purchased for fattening and later slaughter. Since stockmen used feed brought from local merchants to

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Schirmer, 44; and Montgomery, 102-04. History of Jackson County, 535. This was the forerunner of the Kansas City Union Stockyards. Different sources vary the number of acres as between 13 and 15. Schirmer, 45. Ibid., 44. Ibid., 44-46. Ibid.

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fattened the cattle and then sold it to West Bottom meat packers, the livestock trade made " ... a tidy circle of profit for the local economy. "49

By 1890, eight meatpacking plants employing 6,200 men and a growing number of meat inspection and processing companies located in the West Bottoms. The demand created by the city's growing meatpacking businesses contributed to the increase in the number of livestock arriving in Kansas City from 167,000 head for all of 1871 to 100,000 head a day in 1908.50

MEAT PROCESSING AND ASSOCIATED INDUSTRIES

Immediately after the Civil War, meat packers went to western cattle yards located along rail lines. The establishment of rail yard pens for cattle in the West Bottoms changed the practice and initiated the City's role as a meat-processing center. In 1868 the firm of J. W. L. Slavens, and Edward W. Pattison built the city's first beef packing house, slaughtering and packing around 4200 head of cattle their first season. That same year Thomas J. Bigger, an Irish immigrant, established a hog-packing plant exporting to Irish and English markets. By 1870 five small packinghouses operated in Kansas City.51

Attracted by the potential savings in shipping costs that Kansas City's western location offered, the Armour brothers, established Chicago meat packers, established an operation with John Plankinton in the West Bottoms in 1871. The first year in operation, the company butchered 13,000 cattle and 15,000 hogs. Eight years later, the Plankinton and Armour plant covered five acres.52 Swift and Company's 1887 plant encompassed 13 acres near the stockyards while the Cudahy operation took over a 14-acre site in 1899. Completing what would become the "big four" of twentieth century meat processing companies in Kansas City was the Wilson and Company's takeover of a local plant in 1915.53

The Armour Company's installation of a refrigerated "arctic plant" and the Swift Company's refrigerated rail car allowed slaughterhouses to operated year-round rather than closing in the summer months because of heat and insects. Moreover, the new inventions guaranteed delivery of fresh meat to markets hundreds and thousands of miles from the packing plant.54 Access to tender, feed-lot cuts of specially bred beef stock further stimulated the market for beef and Kansas City's meat packers provided a steady, reliable source of tender beef. The packing plants generated millions of dollars and established Kansas City as the nation's second largest meat processor.55

The success of the meatpacking industry depended on the demand for processed meat by a growing urban population. Retail sale of fresh beef occurred only in or near cities that had slaughterhouses; most cities did not

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Ibid. Ibid., 46. History of Jackson County, 536. Montgomery, 111. In 1892 it reorganized as Armour and Company. Schirmer, 47. Ibid., and Montgomery, 111. Schirmer, 47. Chicago was first.

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have enough facilities to meet local demand. Most families, whether urban or rural,. depended on dried, cured or canned meat. The packing demand for hogs alone led commission men to create a sizable hog market in Kansas and western Missouri. Soon sheep arrived at the slaughterhouses as a matter of course. 56

The livestock and meat backing businesses geared up to feed both troops and civilians during W.W.I and again in W.W.II. But their production steadily declined between those conflicts and, after 1947, the decline became more rapid. With a regional network of paved county roads, financed in part by government programs during the Great Depression, livestock producers found a wider .choice of markets for their animals. With the increased use of truck transport after 1920, farmers found it easier and cheaper to ship stock directly to nearby regional markets or local sale barns. The Kansas City StockYards attempted to counter the trend by building a truck terminal, but it was never fully adequate to serve an area designed for rail shipments. And, stockmen preferred the more direct auction system rather than the more expensive, middleman consignment system used at the stockyards. 57

The small sale barns that sprang up throughout the region attracted meat packers. Established companies, with antiquated facilities in larger cities like Kansas City, elected to build small, automated specialty plants near sale barns rather than retool their large packinghouses. For example, the Swift Company closed 259 plants between 1956 and 1966 and opened 260 new ones out in the countryside. By the early 1970s, only a few small meat processors remained in Kansas City. The stockyards but handled so few animals that needed renovation was not practical. Forty years after the stock yards received 2 million head annually in the 1920s, the number fell below 800,000 and, with the continued decline in numbers, the yards closed in the 1980s.58

The only remaining physical evidence of the livestock industry in the West Bottoms today is the Livestock Exchange Building erected in 1910 at 1600 Genessee. 59 Related structures, concentrated along Genessee include the Drover's Telegram Corr1pany at 1503-05 Genessee which published a newspaper for stockmen; the Stock Yards Hotel at 1611 Genessee and the Shipley Building, a saddlers and merchandise shop at 1627-31 Genessee.

GRAIN INDUSTRY

Kansas City owned its growth as a center for brokering and processing grain to German Mennonites and Catholics who migrated to Kansas and Nebraska in 1873 who brought to the plains a variety of wheat called "Turkey Red" from their settlements on the Volga River. Turkey Red is a winter wheat that is planted in the fall and harvested in early summer. Because it was winter hardy, it grew in Kansas in the fall, winter, spring and early summer months. Prior to this time, the farms in the region produced sporadic surpluses for export.

During the initial settlement period in western Missouri, settlers imported flour from mills in eastern Missouri and western Illinois, a practice that continued until after the Civil War. These early communities soon became selfsustaining, but the demand created in the late 1840s and early 1850s by overland emigrants, the military trade through U.S. Army's quartermaster's office at Fort Leavenworth and the Southwest commercial trade soon created

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History of Jackson County, 536. Ibid., 222. Ibid., 222-223. The 1910 Live Stock Exchange Building was listed in the National Register of Historic Places March 5, 1984.

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a demand that exceeded local production. By the time Kansas made the transition from territorial status to statehood its farmers produced large amounts of grain. However, new settlers and westward immigrates claimed any surplus. By 1870 regional production began to exceed local demand and railroads delivered small amounts of grain to eastern markets. The following year, the amount of surplus grain produced prompted investors to erect a grain elevator with a capacity of 100,000 bushels. By the close of 1872, the grain business in Kansas City required two more elevators. 60

After the introduction of Turkey Red wheat in the late 1870s, regional grain production escalated. By 1880, sevengrain elevators in Kansas City, Missouri stored 1.5 million bushels for local mills. By 1891, 14 grain elevators with a storage capacity of 3.8 million bushels handled the million bushels of grain that often passed in and out of the city in a single day. By 1900 the number of elevators was nearly 30.61 The amount of grain shipped through Kansas City continued to grow. By the 1920s, a period when the stockyards and packing plants began to decline, the advent of motorized farm equipment opened the Southwest to winter-wheat production. Most of the increased yield from this region found its way to Kansas City, further boosting local trading.62 Grain not milled locally filled river barges or freight cars bound for other cities and coastal ports. 63

The volume of available wheat spawned a sizable milling industry. Grain milling profited from an economy of scale that did not efficiently occur in small rural centers. By 1919 the output of Kansas City's millers collectively ranked second in the nation, an impressive 2.5 million barrels a year. 64

The abundance of flour led to the establishment of large commercial bakeries. Cracker firms in Kansas City employed thousands of workers. Large commercial bakeries located in both the West Bottoms and the Crossroads Area during the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. The locally owned Loose-Wiles Biscuit Company's aggressive marketing and sales programs made its chief product, Sunshine Biscuits, a household word throughout the country.65

WHOLESALE AND WAREHOUSING INDUSTRIES

Kansas City's geographic location in the United States and its position as a rail hub with lines leading in every direction also stimulated wholesale goods and warehousing industries. Kansas City' warehouse business dates from the time that French fur trader, Francois Chouteau, erected a storehouse on the south bank of the Missouri River. The city's first commercial warehouses served as storage places for goods received by local retail businesses until they could be transferred to their stores, as holding and collection sites for goods recently received or destined for other locations, and as storage areas near factories for recently manufactured goods. Throughout the city's commercial development, warehouse facilities appeared in every commercial and industrial area.

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History of Jackson County, 48. Ibid. Ibid. 234. Montgomery, 110 and Schirmer, 234. Schirmer, 48. Ibid.

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Among the earliest and the strongest of the wholesale businesses in Kansas City were companies dealing in the sale and warehousing of farm implements. The demand for implements in Kansas City rose dramatically after the state. of Kansas opened for farming and cattle raising. By 1878 Kansas City agricultural implement distribution companies conducted more business than in any other city in the United States, handling approximately $5 million dollars of goods. Contributing to the phenomenal growth of this business was the geographical position of the city at the center of the nation, its location in one of the country's richest agricultural areas and the rapidly improving transportation accommodations. Shortly after the John Deere Plow Company started a warehouse in the West Bottoms in the early 1880s, other national firms followed and Kansas City became known as a major implement center with six other firms building warehouses here and numerous others maintaining some sort of sales force. By 1887, every manufacturer of agricultural implements and machinery in the United States had representatives in Kansas City and the city's implement firms sold 75,000 box carloads of farm equipment a year'. Annual sales rose to $35 million in 1914. Indications of the city's prominence in the field were the 1887 National Agricultural Exposition, and the 1901 1th Annual Convention of Western Implement and Vehicle Dealers Association, both held in the city.66

Wholesale "Jobber" Industry During the late nineteenth century, Kansas City "jobbers" - middlemen who purchased manufactured goods from factories throughout the country and sold them (with a mark-up in cost) to retailers, dealt in a wide assortment of goods. In 1900 the nearly 500 local jobbing houses in Kansas City played a dominant role in the national wholesale industry, distributing finished articles from the manufacturing centers of the world to the developing American West and Southwest. The area covered by these houses equaled almost half of the land area of the United States and the combined annual business of these companies was nearly $200 million. Among the products "jobbed" in the city were dry goods and hardware; wholesale groceries and liquor; furniture, lumber, and moldings; paint and varnishes; agricultural implements and machinery, seeds; pharmaceuticals; paper; and jewelry. 67 By the first decades of the twentieth century, a new variation on the business of distribution appeared. Buildings that housed regional sales offices, showrooms and distribution warehouses for national chains such as the Studebaker Corporation, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer'Distributing Corporation, and the Columbia Graphaphone and Dictaphone Company appeared. 68

Warehouse Industry In addition to warehouses utilized by distributors and wholesale jobbers near railroad freighting services, storage buildings served local retail businesses such as the J. W. Jenkins and Sons Music Company, Robert Keith Furniture and Carpet Company, John Taylor Dry Goods Company, and Bunting Hardware and Machinery Company. During the late nineteenth century, economic boom years for railroad freight shipping, the warehousing business grew into a sizable area of commerce. After W.W.I. the city's warehousing and wholesale businesses encountered a shrinking trade area as retailers found suppliers closer to home than Kansas City. Secondary supply centers

66 Ibid., 37. 67 City Planning and Development Department, Historic Preservation Management Division of Kansas· City, Missouri; Thomason and Associates Preservation Planners; and Three Gables Preservation, "Historic Resources Survey Plan of Kansas City" (Kansas City: Landmarks Commission of Kansas City, Missouri, 1992), 37. 68 Betz. Compilation of information from survey forms.

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developed first in mid-sized cities like Denver, Omaha and Wichita and, later, in towns like Salina, Kansas and Hastings, Nebraska. Further impacting the city's wholesale and warehouse market was the arrival of the manufacturer's representatives who traveled by car to the retailer's shop to take orders. The development of the franchise chain store, in tum, did away with the sales rep. The effects of this evolution in marketing can be seen in the loss of 129 wholesale businesses in Jackson County between 1948 and 1954.69

MANUFACTURERS

Kansas City's role as a rail center assured the establishment of a sizable manufacturing industry in the city. As each industrial enclave became established near freight lines, manufactures of a wide array of products erected plants and warehouses. Products manufactured and distributed by Kansas City industries included foods and condiments; chemicals and paints; metal fillings, valves; pumps, tanks, and well machinery; gas, electric, diesel and kerosene engines; starch, furniture, and engineering supplies; and refrigeration units, fire-protection equipment, wind mills and other machinery. 70 The advent of the internal combustion machine spawned the production of cars and trucks. Early automotive entrepreneurs took advantage of the city's _location as a major shipper and established automobile assembly plants in the Blue River Valley and north of the Missouri River

The manufacturing and fabrication of metals grew into an important part of the city's industrial base as a result of the city's central location in the national railroad freight system. The manufacturing of primary metals and fabricated metal products gained a foothold in Kansas City around 1900, and significant growth occurred in the 1920s and again after 1940. A sizable portion of the metals industry in the West Bottoms and the Blue Valley industrial areas involved the fabrication of agricultural implements. The manufacturing of steel in Kansas City grew out of expansion of the old Kansas City Bolt and Nut Company in the Blue Valley industrial area following W.W.I. Reorganized as the Sheffield Steel Corporation in 1925,71 the company operated oil and gas-fired open-hearth furnaces for steel production and an electric furnace for processing scrap metal. By 1953 the firm had an annual capacity of 480,000 tons.72

A number of firms dealing in fabricated metal products emerged in the 1920s in response to the need for material and equipment of new industrial and commercial firms in towns in the Kansas City region. Firms such as Butler Manufacturing in the Blue Valley industrial area produced a wide range of welded storage and shipping containers, fabricated grain bins, metal plate, and even steel buildings. Smaller firms, fabricating brass castings, light fixtures, wire cable, steel drums, tin cans and a wide range of industrial supplies, located near rail lines in the Old Town, West Bottoms, Crossroads Area and Blue River Valley industrial areas. 73

The advent of truck transport and better county roads loosened the railroad's control over the local economy. By the 1920s, towns and villages in rural areas matured and developed industrial and trade centers independent of Kansas City. Manufacturing continued to decline during the depression of the 1930s. Even the upturn in

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Schirmer, 223-224. Betz; and Piland and U guccioni. Listing compiled from survey forms. Further reorganization joined Sheffield and the Union Wire Rope Company within Armco Steel. Schirmer, 226. Ibid.

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manufacturing during World War II presented obstacles to continued growth of manufacturing within the city. Turning out war material during W.W.II raised the capacities of manufactures in the surrounding towns of the region at a time older manufacturing centers in cities produced less. 74 Industrial mobilization for the war actually began shortly after Hitler invaded Poland in 1939 and reached maximum capacity by 1943.

The government acted primarily as a purchaser rather than a manufacturer and most of the defense funds allocated to Jackson County went to existing manufacturing facilities. Electronics and metal fabricators received the biggest boost from war contracts. Wilcox Electric produced communication and navigation equipment. Vendo and Aireon provided electronics apparatus. The Darby Corporation and Kansas City Structural Steel manufactured landing craft for the U.S. Navy. Butler Manufacturing, Colombian Steel Tank, Benson Manufacturing and other metal fabricators produced everything from aircraft refuelers to aircraft parts. 75 Alcoa retrofitted a vacant plant in the Blue River Valley into an aluminum foundry for fabricating cylinder heads in aircraft engines. The Ford plant switched to making military vehicle components while the Chevrolet and Fisher Body automotive plants facilities produced artillery ammunition. Local garment makers like H. D. Lee and Nelly Don made uniforms.76

When peace returned in 1945, local plants stood ready to manufacture items that were scarce during the war. At the same time the hungry countries of postwar Europe required the agricultural surplus of America's heartland. Kansas City's businesses made an easy transition to peacetime production, thanks in part to the new infusion of capital, managerial experience and technical ability provided by military contracts.77

SPECIALIZED BUSINESSES

Each industrial freighting district in Kansas City included a considerable number of small specialized commercial businesses such as laundries, sign companies, sheet metal shops, plumbing companies, and building contractors. For example, north of the Union Station in the Crossroads Area is a unique cluster of buildings constructed between 1902 and 1958 that housed technical, manufacturing and distributing divisions of major studios, such as Warner Brothers, Fox, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, and Paramount studios.78

In addition, there are a number of businesses that provide needed specialty services in commercial and industrial areas such as restaurants, saloons, hotels, gas stations, machine and auto repair shops and banks. The earliest of these, located in the area because of its proximity to supplies shipped in on the railroads, the latter by virtue of zoning regulations and proximity to suppliers or customers. Most owe their choice of location to a combination of all of these factors.

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Ibid., 227. Ibid., 230. Ibid., 231. Ibid. Piland and U guccioni, 14.

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COMMERCIAL AND INDUSTRIAL ARCHITECTURE IN KANSAS CITY'S RAILROAD FREIGHT DISTRICTS, 1869-1950

COMMERCIAL AND INDUSTRIAL BUILDINGS AND STRUCTURES, 1865-1899

Architectural Styles Kansas City's first business houses on the Missouri River levee were simple one- or two-story buildings constructed in wood, brick or stone. With the completion of the Hannibal Bridge in 1869, the city's business houses moved inland to the town square, forming a mixture of frame and brick buildings, seldom more than three stories high, situated on a grid pattern. Some of these early commercial buildings featured formalized architectural design features. Their elaborate cornices, decorative lintels, stone foundations and assorted stylistic details emphasized the more permanent nature of a city that had settled into a period of established economic growth and stability.79

The post-Civil War period saw a rapid rise of urban areas in both size and influence. Equally important was the radical transformation in their visual character brought on by growth. Sharp differences emerged between East and West and town and city. Commercial areas became specialized according to administrative, retail, wholesale, and industrial use. New building types and reinterpretations of familiar building types to meet these specialized functions evolved such as the commercial block, office building, city hall and courthouse, department store, factory and warehouse loft and wholesale storage depot. 80

Commercial buildings erected in the United States during the late nineteenth to serve special functions followed many general forms and patterns. They fall into two distinct design categories, those that reflect popular academic or "high style" designs and those that feature simple utilitarian styles. Many of the commercial and industrial buildings can also be identified by the arrangement of their fa9ade. One- and two-story commercial retail and specialty service buildings in urban areas usually featured a separate storefront and upper fa9ade while the commercial and industrial buildings that were two stories or more in height can be classified according to the arrangement of their upper facades. All of these buildings may be classified first by form and, additionally, by stylistic features or they may be identified by style alone.

Growth and prosperity in Kansas City brought a variety of robust popular nineteenth century styles for commercial and industrial buildings -- Italianate, Renaissance Revival, Second Empire, and Romanesque Revival. Less "important" buildings erected during the late nineteenth century reflected faint echoes of their high-style counterparts in the use of restrained, simple ornament and character defining elements

The Historic Resources Survey Plan of Kansas City identified and classified a number of vernacular commercial and industrial building types. Two major classifications that denote a building's overall plan and form are the "False Front Victorian Functional" and "Urban Commercial Building Forms, 1870-1940." The latter building type includes the following sub-types: the One-Part Commercial Block, the Two-Part Commercial Block, Stacked

79

80 Ehrlich, 21. Rifkind, 193.

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Vertical Block, Two-Part Vertical Block, Three-Part Vertical Block and Temple Front designs.81 Many examples of these designs can be found in railroad freight areas in the city. In particular, adaptations of the Two-Part Commercial Block, the Two-Part Vertical Block and Three-Part Vertical Block are found in railroad freight areas. Extant examples include those executed in popular architectural styles of the day as well as those that feature more restrained stylistic touches.

The Two-Part Commercial Block building is found throughout Kansas City's older neighborhoods. These buildings are two-to-four stories in height and feature a definite horizontal division that reflects the building's use. The first story is comprised of one or more storefronts with living or office quarters above. Commercial and industrial buildings in railroad freight areas that utilize this design include offices of commission agents, small wholesale sales operations, specialty stores, and post office buildings. 82

The Two-Part Vertical Block is most commonly associated with office buildings, stores, hotels and public and institutional buildings. These buildings are at least four stories high and feature a facade that has two major horizontal zones that are different yet carefully related to one another. The lower zone rises one or two stories and serves as a visual base for the upper zone. The upper zone features prominent architectural detailing and is treated as a unified whole. Many of the larger commercial buildings erected by national companies utilized this design for their district offices and warehouses. 83

The Three-Part Vertical Block is identical to the Two-Part Vertical Block except that it has a distinct upper zone of generally one to three stories. More commonly found in tall buildings erected in the 1920s, the tripartite design is also found in commercial buildings with four or more stories erected in the late nineteenth century. These designs commonly feature a lower zone, a transitional zone of one or more stories, and an upper "attic" zone of one story. The level of architectural embellishment is uniform throughout the fa9ade. 84

Some types of academic or "high style" architectural designs that reflect a definite style distinguished by special characteristics of structure and ornament are frequently found railroad freight areas. These buildings reflect styles that enjoyed wide public support and are easily defined by their form, spatial relationships and embellishments. Those commonly found in nineteenth century railroad freight areas include Italianate, Romanesque Revival, and Renaissance Revival styles.

Italianate style commercial buildings began to appear in commercial and industrial areas after 1855. The most elaborate served as retail stores featuring a -street level storefront with expanses of plate glass framed by columns, pilasters or decorated piers. Most had cast iron columns and storefront elements that were mass produced and cheaper than carved stone. Upper-story windows had round or segmental arches often with projecting keystones and richly profiled moldings. A projecting cornice with modillions or brackets often crowned the flat roofline at the

81 City Planning and Development Department, 160-168. Commercial vernacular property types in this document are based on American Vernacular Design, 1870-1940 by Jan Jennings and Herbert Gottfried and the Buildings of Main Street by Richard Longstreth. 82 Ibid., 163. 83 Ibid., 165. 84 Ibid., 166.

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eaves. 85 Italianate style buildings located in commercial and industrial freight areas were more restrained versions. More often than not, they reflected Italianate stylistic influences through the adaptation of several features, in particular, tall, narrow arched or pedimented window openings; decorative cornice lines; and large brackets. The building at 1228-50 Union in the West Bottoms erected in 1890 is one of the few remaining buildings in the city's commercial/industrial areas exhibiting these Italianate details.

By far the most popular and enduring nineteenth century design utilized in Kansas City for large commercial and industrial buildings was the Romanesque Revival style. Usually executed in red brick, the style remained popular for commercial and manufacturing buildings throughout the 1890s and into the first decades of the twentieth century. Monumental and stately in appearance, the Romanesque style industrial building usually stood five to six stories.86 Defining elements of the style as executed in the commercial and industrial buildings in Kansas City's industrial freight areas are: the use of coarse ashlar and brick to create a heavy, rugged building form; massive low arches employed over windows and doors; cavernous entries; deep window reveals; and utilization of cast terra cotta panels and column capitals.87 A typical example of the Romanesque style's use is Askew Saddlery Company building in the Old Town industrial area.

Several popular styles do not appear in the designs of the buildings near freight yards in Kansas City. Architects and clients eschewed the Gothic Revival style, although a few examples exist where architects and builders did incorporate some of the idiom's features such as pointed arch windows. While the elaborate Second Empire style was the chosen treatment of the Union Depot ( demolished) erected in the West Bottoms in 1878, commercial and industrial buildings in freight areas did not utilize the style. The Renaissance Revival style, popular in the design of hotels, corporate headquarters and in public buildings in Kansas City, was a rare stylistic choice for the functional manufacturing and warehouse buildings in the city's industrial centers. Certain characteristics of the Renaissance Revival style can, however, be found in the arched openings, detailed cornices and rusticated masonry laid with deep joints that give the appearance of massiveness and strong horizontal lines to commercial buildings in industrial areas.

Construction Materials and Techniques All of the commercial-industrial buildings erected in the late nineteenth century displayed a wide variety of traditional and innovative materials often used in combinations to create a striking effect. During this period, darkred or dark-brown brick, limestone, and slate were favorite materials. Dressed Brownstone and dark-toned granite, often hewn for a rustic treatment, had both visual and tactile appeal. The use of cast iron both structurally and for decoration became popular during the 1870s and continued to be used throughout the remainder of the century. Zinc, galvanized iron and pressed tin also came into use during this period. The ever present concern for fire safety popularized the use of pressed brick, ceramic tile and, after the tum of the century, reinforced concrete. To enliven building surfaces, architects and builders of this period favored the use of brick corbels as well as the use of terra cotta cast in panels, moldings and columns. 88

.

85

86 Ibid., 169. Ibid., 170.

87 John C. Poppeliers; S. Allen Chambers, Jr.; and Nancy B. Schwartz, What Style Is It A Guide To American Architecture (Washington D.C.: National Trust For Historic Preservation Preservation Press), 1983, 62, 65. 88 Rifkind, 194.

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New tools, new materials and new processes emerged during this period with staggering rapidity. The industrialization of glass production led to the use of the large plate-glass windows of the late Victorian period The Civil War accelerated the development of metallurgical industries and the post war fabrication and use of iron and, then, steel as structural building components transformed construction technology. By the beginning of the twentieth century the nation's increased capacity to supply structural steel in a range of shapes and form led to the demise in the use of the less satisfactory wrought iron and cast iron. In particular, as steel succeeded iron in the 1880s and 1890s, the method of steel framing called "skeleton construction" eliminated the use of timber and masonry materials as structural building elements. At the same time the manufacture of Portland cement, begun in 1870, gave impetus to the use of brick and stone masonry for the walls oflarge buildings. The advent of steel skeleton buildings and the accompanying prospect of fireproof construction stimulated, in tum, new developments in ceramic and clay products. 89

The voracious demand for new construction and the appearance of new technologies in the late nineteenth century led to the creation of the building industry itself as a distinct force in shaping the appearance of commercial and industrial buildings. Steam power allowed the efficient quarrying and finishing of stone. Hydraulic cranes and elevators permitted the accomplishment of extraordinary construction feats. Advances in metal fabrication led to the mass production of high-quality tools and machines. 90 The cumulative effect of the inventions developed between 1865 and 1900 such as the elevator, electric transformer, airbrake, generator, dynamo, cable, motor and light bulb, completely transformed the character of the nation's buildings, releasing them from centuries-old limitations of size, density·and relationship.91

COMMERCIAL AND INDUSTRIAL BUILDINGS AND STRUCTURES 1900-1950

Architectural Styles During the first decades of the twentieth century, the country's urban centers experienced a rapid rise in population. Kansas City's growth patterns reflected this trend. Between 1910 and 1933 the population of Kansas City increased by 150,000, a rate of growth mirroring that of other urban centers in the country.92 Rapid growth and the industrialization of urban centers created profound social problems. As Americans turned their attention to addressing these issues, there was a cultural shift from the aesthetic abstractions of the Victorian period to the economic, social and physical realities of the early twentieth century. Architects increasingly turned to more utilitarian styles. In Kansas City, the demand for more housing and the expanding number of commercial structures created a noticeable shift to functional adaptations of historic styles and more functional approaches to design.

The revival styles that began in the late nineteenth century and lasted into the 1920s, notable for their weightiness and solidity were larger and more elaborate than earlier nineteenth century styles. Kansas City's freight districts contain a number of extant examples of this treatment. These buildings often housed corporate offices as well as a manufacturing plant and/or storage facility. The architect's use of these styles in designing commercial and industrial buildings

89

168. 90

91

92

James Marston Fitch, American Building The Historical Forces That Shaped It (New York: Schocken Books, 1973),

Rifkind, 271 and Fitch, 169. Fitch, 176. Ehrlich, 66.

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typically consisted of the merging of vague historic motifs with utilitarian building forms. Nevertheless, even in heavily industrial streetscapes, classically inspired architectural elements adorned many of the buildings erected during the first two decades of the twentieth century. Such embellishments included the use of rusticated plinths, pilasters, columnar entrances, and classical cornice treatments.

At the same time that revival styles enjoyed popularity, the industrial designs that emerged from the Chicago School became a major influence on Kansas City architecture. The use of the style was part of an evolutionary process in design. In the mid- l 880s taller buildings began to appear and architects accented the different floors using such typical treatments as banding ascending stories at intervals by horizontal courses, changes in materials and, sometimes, intricate Classical or Romanesque omament.93 By the 1890s, a new treatment popularized by Chicago architects took a simpler form. These designs used restrained ornamentation and emphasized the grid-like pattern created by the steel-skeleton construction by a balanced treatment of horizontal spandrels and vertical piers. The design frequently used a three-part window composed of a wide, fixed pane flanked by narrow double-sash windows as the principal element of pattern and ornamentation. Beginning in the early 1890s, buildings over five stories often incorporated these elements and the hierarchy created by Chicago architect, Louis Sullivan. Sullivan's use of lower stories to create a heavy base and attic stories to establish an expressive and definitive crown, with the intermediate stories serving as a shaft created by vertical piers, became the model for what became known as the Chicago School style. 94 Whether executed in the Romanesque style or with a Classical Revival treatment, the form of these first Chicago School style buildings remained the same. In Kansas City's industrial areas, pure forms of the Sullivanesque style are not found while a large number of vernacular adaptations erected in the Chicago School style remain.

The patterns of development of Kansas City and types and styles of structures built after World War I and before the Great Depression reflected both national trends and the unique circumstances of Kansas City itself. Most utilitarian, industrial and non-retail commercial buildings had minimal architectural ornament -- patterned brickwork, sparse terracotta ornamentation and, occasionally, Romanesque-inspired arched openings. During the boom construction years of the 1920s buildings became taller in downtown areas. Because of the size and height, architects experimented with period revival detailing such as the vertical ribs to suggest Gothic, a Tudor arched doorway at the base of a tower or a Renaissance Revival fac;ade for a bank. Functional industrial and commercial buildings rarely reflected these treatments. 95

The simple cubic forms and flat surfaces of the Art Deco and Modem styles quickly found a place in industrial areas. The simplicity of the styles, popular from 1925-1940, proved to be quite adaptable to low, simple buildings that housed the offices and show rooms ( and even storage areas) of manufacturers representatives and distributors as well as business offices of small firms. These streamlined buildings had simple cubic forms and flat surfaces with little or no ornamentation. The Modeme variation of these Modem Movement buildings featured banded windows of metal and glass. The linear Art Deco style had a pronounced verticality and featured geometric

93

94

95

Rifkind, 19 5. Ibid., 195-96 and Poppeliers, 72-75. Rifkind, 218.

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ornamentation that utilized faceted surfaces, zigzags, and chevron patterns. Simple restrained versions of these modem building styles remain throughout the city's industrial areas.96

By the 1930s, much of the building activity in the area greatly diminished. The majority of commercial and industrial buildings erected during the 1930s and 1940s feature simple masonry construction, often a light colored brick, with functional styling incorporating minimal ornamentation. A few incorporate the decorative and streamlined Art Deco and Modeme architectural styling that evokes the era. In Kansas City the use of high style Art Deco and Modeme designs became accepted, particularly for government and office buildings and commercial retail buildings. By the end of the decade, the stark International Style that came out of Europe made Art Deco seem ornate. But, before the style took hold, the prospect of war in Europe and consequent entry of the United States into the conflict stimulated a return to known designs. America's architectural tastes again embraced the revival styles, particularly the Colonial and Classical Revival style idioms.97

Construction Materials and Techniques Although the palette of the tum-of-the-century City Beautiful Movement brought white, light-gray marble, limestone and buff masonry materials to the city's boulevards and commercial corridors, the use of dark brick and stone continued in industrial freighting areas. Architects used specialty metals such as bronze, steel alloys, copper and brass for ornament. Following World War I the use of pastel-colored terra-cotta and unglazed bricks with soft yellow and russet tones created a rich tapestry like effect in masonry walls. By the 1930s poured concrete construction and cast-concrete ornament came into common usage. Materials associated with the Art Deco style included black glass and marble, neon tubes, and bronze and terra cotta in decorative grilles and panels. The Modeme style employed large expanses of glass, glass brick, chrome and stainless steel. 98

The importance of the technological discoveries and advent of their commonplace usage profoundly affected the buildings of the twentieth century. During the first decades of the new century, the handicraft of the nineteenth century building trades gave way to a flood of industrial mass production. 99

During the first decade of the century, reinforced concrete came into usage, particularly in commercial and industrial architecture. Its early use in Kansas City in the first decade of the twentieth century is due to two local architects who pioneered the use of reinforced concrete - John McKecknie and James Oliver Hogg. Both of their firms designed numerous industrial and commercial buildings in the city. 100

The use of welding, rigid-frame trusses and the cantilever accelerated the use of steel construction during the 1920s and the Depression years. Continuous floor slabs supported by reinforced concrete mushroom columns permitted heavy-load-bearing capacity in warehouse structures. The greater strength created by the use of steel welding and synthetic adhesives created lighter construction. Electric welding tools, cutting tools utilizing cemented tungsten carbide and tantalum carbide, and compressed-air tools, all provided the ability to utilize new building materials.

96

97

98

99

100

Poppeliers, 88 - 93 and Ehrlich, 113. Rifkind, 217-218 and Ehrlich, 94-106. Rifkind, 218. Fitch, 229. Ehrlich, 61.

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These innovations led to streamlined standardized construction processes including mass production and prefabrication. 101

The application of electric power to industrial production profoundly changed on the appearance of industrial districts and the design of industrial buildings. The use of high-voltage electrical-cable transmission began in the 1890s and, by 1920, almost one-third of the power in industrial areas was electric. Transmission lines ran to industrial areas where integrated manufacturing, warehouse, utility buildings and transportation systems stood. With the development in 1913 of the overhead trolley to move materials mechanically, assembly-line production became firmly established. Industrial buildings and sites expanded laterally instead of vertically. Owners of light manufacturing businesses erected structures that seldom exceeded one or two stories and located them in formal campus-like arrangements. Large, steel-frame storage and processing buildings became a new component irt industrial areas. New scientific analysis of production flow and working conditions also affected factory design as the manufacturing process became highly adapted for production of specific products, an approach that created new spatial arrangements. 102

THE EVOLUTION OF THE PRACTICE OF ARCHITECTURE IN KANSAS CITY

During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries professionalism in the practice of architecture became firmly established in Kansas City. Prosperous times dramatically changed the city's appearance and increased architectural sophistication on the part of craftsman and client. All combined "to make over what had been for all practical purposes a medium sized western city just barely removed from its frontier origins. 103

Since Missouri did not regulate architectural practice until 1941, many of the individual~ involved in the construction of buildings and structures prior to that time, particularly in the nineteenth century, bestowed upon themselves the title of "architect." In 1870, nine individuals appeared in the classified section of the city directory as architects. This number decreased to two in 1875 due to the depressed economy resulting from the Panic of 1873. The construction boom of the 1880s changed these numbers dramatically. The boom in Kansas City attracted major firms from Chicago, New York and Boston to open temporary offices in the city. In 1880, 15 firms appeared in the city directory, of these four were partnerships and the number of individually listed architects numbered 19. The number of architects tripled in the five years between 1884 and 1888, a peak that was not reached again until the building boom of 1904-1906. The 1880 city directory listed 64 architectural firms including 11 partnerships. In 1915 the city directory listed 81 firms. Eighteen firms were partnerships. Of the 102 architects practicing in the city, 38 were in dual or trio partnerships. These "architects" ranged in skills and expertise from the academically or professionally trained to carpenter-builders who simply proclaimed themselves architects. Nevertheless, the buildings and structures erected in the period reflect the presence of competent and even innovative architectural practices.104

101

102

103

Rifkind, 294. Ibid., 296. Ehrlich, 41.

104 George Ehrlich, "Partnership Practice and the Professionalization of Architecture in Kansas City, Missouri," Missouri Historical Review LXXIV, 4 (July 1980), 458-480.

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This evolution reflected regional trends. During the late nineteenth and early twentieth century professionalism in the practice of architecture became firmly established in the Midwest. After the tum of the century, graduates from two architecture schools in Kansas joined the architects trained outside the area who practiced in Kansas City, Missouri. The College of Engineering at Kansas State University in Manhattan first offered a formal curriculum for study of architecture in 1903. The architectural program at the University of Kansas in Lawrence began ten years later under the direction of Goldwin Goldsmith, a graduate of Cornell University and former secretary to Stanford White, of the New York-based firm ofMcKim, Mead & White. The two schools offered programs in both architecture and architectural engineering. The acceptance of modernism in the region was due, in part, to attitudes fostered at the University of Kansas where the architecture program was among the first in the country to embrace the new aesthetic tenets evolving in Europe in the 1920s. Kansas City architect, Clarence Kivett, a 1928 graduate, was a leader in introducing modernist architectural sensibilities to the Midwest. In addition to the impact of graduates of these schools, the architectural profession in the Kansas City area in the first half of the twentieth century continued to be enriched by architects who trained at other institutions. 105

During the same period, one result of industrial expansion was an initial split between the disciplines of architecture and engineering. As metal construction came into general use for bridges, the roofs of large structures, and, ultimately steel frame buildings during the nineteenth century, engineers became more involved in the design of large industrial and commercial projects. At the same time architects, distracted by efforts to resuscitate historic styles, as a rule ignored the possibilities of new technology and materials. 106 During the first decades of the twentieth century the two disciplines began to reconcile as style and function blended.

The architecture that evolved as the industrial areas near freight rail lines in Kansas City expanded reflects the work of many architects hired by prominent businesses to design their buildings. Architects and firms generally known for the quality of their commercial designs and/or for use of new technologies whose work is reflected in the extant buildings in the freight areas are listed in Figure 6.

CONCLUSION

The forces of location and available rail services determined the industrial and commercial future of Kansas City. The unique circumstances of demand for commercial and industrial buildings and structures, available architectural and engineering expertise and client preferences for the popular styles of the day determined how Kansas City looked and how it differed in appearance from district to district within the city. From these same parameters, certain property types evolved. The functional plan dictated by the needs of the owner created distinct property types. The property types and their arrangement in freighting areas along with the architectural styles applied to their plans, in tum, created a unique sense of place. These "places" today communicate the era of the railroad commercial and industrial freight district in Kansas City.

105 David H. Sachs & George Ehrlich, Guide to Kansas Architecture (Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 1996), 21-22. 106 Fitch, 187-88.

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Associated Property Types for Railroad Related Commercial and Industrial Resources found in Kansas City are based on associative qualities and physical characteristics relating to the original use or function of the resources.

I. NAME OF PROPERTY TYPE: INDUSTRIAL FACILITIES AND COMMERCIAL DISTRIBUTION

BUILDINGS

II. General Description This property type represents the industrial fabricating and commercial wholesale distribution businesses the comprise the core of commercial and industrial resources found in railroad freight areas in Kansas City, Missouri. Although examples of this property type can be found in smallscale. buildings, the most common physical characteristics of the buildings and structures erected in the late nineteenth and early to mid-twentieth century is their large size and massing. They are usually four to eight stories. Some of these buildings may not be individually massive, but when grouped on a streetscape, as a whole they create a massive unit. Most are rectangular buildings aligned on a grid street pattern. Many have trapezoidal plans in response to active rail lines and spurs that run throughout freight areas. The property type usually is simple in form and features restrained decorative and ornamental treatments. Nevertheless, the property type is found in many of the popular commercial "high style" architectural treatments of the era in which they were built. It is not unusual for these buildings to be the design of a master architect. Except for subtle features or the lack thereof, the overall outward of buildings in this property type does not reveal their function. 1 All such facilities have loading docks for trucks and/or for boxcars. The designs of those built in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century utilize large windows to capture natural light and to provide ventilation. They typically have flat roof and masonry construction -brick, reinforced concrete. Their materials reflect the latest in fireproof construction for the period in which they were built. Most use cast iron and, later, steel in their construction. Those constructed in the twentieth century employ reinforced concrete.construction. Many erected in the mid-twentieth century, particularly those used in the metals and warehouse industries have metal walls.

Two types of alterations are common to this property type. The most common are the replacement of window units with new units and blocking of windows, either with masonry, glass block, or sheathing. Due to multiple uses and responses to of continuous flooding over the years, many of the earlier examples demonstrate widespread use of these treatments. In the majority of cases the original openings are intact and the rhythm of windows ( and bays) continues to be readable. It is not unusual for these buildings to have additions on secondary facades.

These function-specific design elements are noted in the discussion of the sub-types.

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Section F Page 2 Railroad Related Historic Commercial and Industrial Resources in Kansas City, Missouri Jackson County, Missouri ·

These properties occur in districts near or adjacent to railroad freight services consisting of numerous related commercial buildings, usually in low-lying areas that have an even or gradual grade. In Kansas City, these areas are typically near rivers. Isolated examples do occur, but they also have proximity to rail services. The sub-types are:

A: Industrial Manufacturing Facilities and Warehouses This property sub-type is based on associations with the original industrial manufacturing use of the building or structure. These facilities incorporate space in their plans for manufacturing and processing, offices and storage. They may have adjacent or nearby buildings used for warehouse purposes as well. Manufacturing areas may include special interior and exterior spaces and structures for fabrication and extractive processes. Those erected during the late nineteenth and early twentieth century reflect popular commercial architectural styles. The larger of the buildings erected during this period include up to eight stories reflecting division of labor on a vertical hierarchy. The shift to assembly line production in the second decade of the twentieth century created a new horizontal form. Buildings erected for light manufacturing after this period seldom exceeded one or two stories. Factories erected during and after this period reflect simpler generic designs that include minimal stylistic references. Unless they served as corporate or regional headquarters, their entrances are not highly articulated.

B. Commercial Distribution Offices and Warehouses Commercial Distribution Offices and Warehouses buildings have associations with the wholesale commercial businesses that developed in Kansas City in the late nineteenth century near railroad shipping facilities They are buildings designed to serve as district headquarters for a particular corporation and to store and distribute the company's products. They also served as offices and showrooms for manufacturer's representatives. Many were designed to house the offices of wholesale "jobbing" companies that purchased a variety of goods from different manufactures and sold them to retail operations. The plan of this property type incorporated offices and storage areas and, sometimes, showrooms. The larger examples often had adjacent or conjoined warehouse space.

The earliest examples of this sub-type are similar in outward appearance to large (four to eight stories) manufacturing buildings and warehouses of the period. Many examples of this sub-type, especially those built after W.W.I. were small buildings that resembled office buildings, usually no more than two stories in height. Buildings in this sub-type erected during the late nineteenth and early twentieth century almost always incorporated popular academic "high style" architectural treatments. Even those with more restrained designs featured more decorative styling than manufacturing and warehouse property sub-types. Whatever the style or treatment, because they often served as regional or

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Section F Page 3 Railroad Related.Historic Commercial and Industrial Resources in Kansas City, Missouri Jackson County, Missouri

corporate headquarters, the entrances of these buildings are accentuated and different fenestration patterns often delineate office space on the lower floors from storage and. processing areas.

C. Commercial Warehouses Commercial Warehouses have associations with the commercial warehousing businesses involved in receiving and distributing raw and manufactured products that developed near railroad shipping facilities in Kansas City, beginning in the late nineteenth century They are buildings designed specifically to store products for distribution or use locally. Many served as "transfer houses" -- buildings designed for businesses specializing in receiving large amounts of goods, dividing them into smaller shipments and distributing them to retail venders or commercial businesses. Other warehouse buildings were erected to provide leased storage space. The plan of this property sub-type incorporates large open storage areas with minimal office space for the facility manager. Many examples are similar in outward appearance to manufacturing buildings and wholesale houses in their large size and massing. In the first decades of the twentieth century, small one and two story warehouse buildings occur with some frequency. The property sub-type usually is a simple rectangular form with vague stylistic references. Its design usually reflects popular functional commercial designs of the era in which they were built. It is not, however, unusual for the larger examples of these buildings to be the design of master architect. Even so, their design was usually understated with no pronounced sense of pedestrian entry. Because of the obvious marketing value, their design reflected the latest in fireproof construction.

III. Significance Significant examples of this property type and sub-types represent the evolution of the period of industrial and commercial expansion related to the railroad freighting industry in Kansas City beginning in the late nineteenth century and continuing in the twentieth century through World War II. As such, they reflect the evolution of manufacturing, wholesale distribution and warehousing businesses in Kansas City. They have direct associations to the historic contexts "The Evolution of Kansas City Railroad Freight Industry, 1859-1950," "Commercial and Industrial Businesses Located Near Rail Freight Facilities, 1865-1950," and "Commercial and Industrial Architecture in Kansas City's Railroad Freight Districts 1869-1950." All date from the period of significance from 1865-1950. The property sub-types are eligible under Criterion A for significance in Commerce locally as representative examples of important periods of industrial development and associated technologies, the warehousing business and the emergence and growth of the wholesale distribution and "jobbing" businesses in Kansas City. Some properties are eligible under Criterion C for local architectural significance as representative examples of the property type and/or architectural style or as a contributing property to a district significant for particular or an assortment of commercial architectural styles.

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IV. Registration Requirements

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To qualify for listing under National Register Criteria A, the property must retain a strong degree of integrity of association and location. The resource must be located in areas of Kansas City which were associated with the manufacture, distribution and storage of goods and merchandise for later distribution that relied on railroad freighting services. Because of multiple uses, buildings associated with industrial and commercial districts underwent alterations, as ownership and leasing needs required. In addition, because of their locations in areas prone to flooding, alterations to window openings, especially on ground level is expected.

To be eligible for individual listing under Criterion A in the National Register these buildings should retain a high degree of architectural integrity in setting, materials, and workmanship for their period of significance. They should also be an excellent example of their property type possessing the distinct stylistic and functional characteristics that qualify it as this property type. The integrity of features associated with the property type is especially important. In particular, a high percentage of window and door elements should be extant, particularly on primary facades. While some alterations to basement windows and ground floor fenestration is to be expected, the impact of alterations in this area should be measured against the architectural integrity and complexity and size of the entire fa9ade. Additions to the main building are acceptable if they are subsidiary to the original and are located on secondary facades. In addition to the above requirements, to be individually listed under Criterion C, the property must be an excellent example of a specific style of architecture retaining a high degree of integrity in setting, design and materials that define the style.

To qualify for listing under Criterion A as a contributing property to a district, sufficient stylistic and structural features should remain to link the property with its period of significance. Specifically, integrity of fa9ade arrangement and fenestration is important. Individual window openings do not have to be extant as long as the rhythm of the fenestration bays is evident and the recession of the window opening has been maintained. Window infill and replacement should not destroy or obscure the original masonry openings. Additions to the main building are acceptable if they are subsidiary to the original and are located on secondary facades. Alterations to primary facades of larger buildings are acceptable if they do not alter a significant portion of the fa9ade and the original appearance of the fa9ade can be restored. In addition to these requirements, to be eligible under Criterion C., properties, as part of a larger grouping must, at a minimum, be a representative example of a specific style of architecture. Integrity of design, materials and workmanship is necessary. Because of their manufacturing and processing function, buildings and structures may also be significant for their engineering.

I. NAME OF PROPERTY TYPE: OFFICE AND SALES BUILDINGS

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II. General Description

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The Office and Sales Buildings property type includes commercial buildings that housed service businesses or venders found in railroad industrial and commercial districts in Kansas City beginning in the late nineteenth century. They are buildings designed for professional service and/or vending uses. In outward appearance they do not differ from certain classifications of commercial buildings found in other areas of the city. They are a distinct property type in freight areas due to their function in freight areas. Many served as commodity brokerage houses, or as small retail and wholesale vending operations providing necessary services in the sales, receipt and disbursal of goods.

Usually sited on one or two lots, they have a rectangular plan with the short side located facing the street. Some are located on block-long raised docks. Their design incorporates public space on the first floor and storage or secondary space on the upper floors. They are one to four stories in height. One defining feature of the property type is a well-defined ground floor storefront that is distinctly separate from the upper stores and reflects a difference in public/private uses. Private use may pertain to storage space or office space or even residential space. Storefront space indicates retail or wholesale vending space, lobby space, showroom or office space. A small percentage of this property type feature high-style designs with an accentuated, stylistic entrance rather than a storefront. The first floor is separated from upper floors by decorative devises such as belt courses, and different fenestration treatments,

The property type's style may reflect "high-style" architectural or commonplace commercial styles popular in the era in which they were built. It is not, however, unusual for examples of these buildings to be the design of an architect. They typically have a flat roof and masonry construction - usually brick. Depending on the date of construction, structural elements include the use of load bearing brick walls, cast iron for structural or steel construction. Similarly, storefronts incorporate combinations of brick, cast iron and wood.

Two types of alterations are common to this property type. The most common alterations are to storefront display areas and the replacement of window units with new units or filling in window openings with masonry, glass block, or sheathing. Due to the multiple uses and continuous flooding over the years, many of the earlier examples demonstrate widespread use of these treatments. In the majority of cases, the original openings are intact and the rhythm of windows ( and bays) continues to be readable. It is not unusual for these buildings to have small additions on secondary facades

These properties occur in districts near or adjacent to railroad freight services consisting of numerous related commercial buildings, usually in low-lying areas that have an even or gradual grade. These areas in Kansas City are typically near rivers.

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III. Significance

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Examples of this property type represent the commercial expansion related to the railroad freighting industry in Kansas City beginning in the late nineteenth century and continuing in the twentieth century through World War II. In particular, they represent the types of small business concerns located in the railroad freight areas that provided brokerage and other services as well as retail and wholesale sales venues. Many had direct associations with receiving and distributing raw and manufactured products. As such, they have direct associations with the historic contexts "Commercial and Industrial Businesses Located Near Rail Freight Facilities, 1865-1950," and "Commercial and Industrial Architecture in Kansas City's Railroad Freight Districts 1869-1950." All date from the period of significance from 1865-1950.

Property types will be eligible for designation under Criterion A for local significance in Commerce as representative examples of role of the development of commerce and trade in Kansas City in relation to the city's role as a railroad distribution center. They are representative of the evolution and role of small businesses providing auxiliary services and goods in freight areas. Some properties will be eligible under Criterion C for architectural significance as examples of the property type and/or a particular architectural style.

IV. Registration Requirements To qualify for listing for their local significance under National Register Criteria A and/or C the property must retain a strong integrity of association and location. The resource must be located in areas of Kansas City which were associated with the manufacture, distribution and storage of goods and merchandise for later distribution that relied on railroad freighting services. Because of multiple uses, buildings associated with industrial and commercial districts underwent alterations as ownership and leasing needs required. In addition, because of their locations in areas prone to flooding, alterations to window openings, especially on ground level is expected.

To be eligible for individual listing under Criterion A in the National Register these buildings should retain a high degree of architectural integrity in setting, materials, and workmanship for their period of significance. They should also be an excellent example of their property type possessing the distinct physical characteristics that qualify it as this property type. Because many of these resources are one or two stories, situated on narrow nineteenth century lots and have restrained commercial styling, it is important that the fac;ade retain its original fenestration and spatial arrangements, in particular, the historic storefront elements or entrance treatment that define this property type. In addition to the above requirements, to be listed as an individual resource under Criterion C, the property must be an excellent example of a specific style of architecture retaining a high degree of integrity in materials and architectural elements that define the style.

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To be listed under Criterion A in the National Register as a contributing element to a district, the resource should retain sufficient stylistic and structural features to link the property with its period of significance. Specifically, integrity of fa9ade arrangement and fenestration is important. The primary fa9ade should have sufficient character defining elements to retain the distinct separation of upper floors from the ground floor. Individual window openings do not have to be extant as long as the rhythm of the fenestration and bays is evident or the recession of the window opening has been maintained. Window, door and storefront infill or replacement should not destroy or obscure original openings. Additions to the main building are acceptable if they are on secondary elevations and are subsidiary in size, scale and massing to the original building. Alterations to primary facades of larger buildings ( three to four stories) in this property type are acceptable if they do not alter a significant portion of the fa9ade and the original appearance of the fa9ade can be restored. Alterations to the fa9ade of simple small examples ( one to two stories) of this property type should be minimal and should not significantly impact the original appearance of the building. In addition to the above requirements, buildings that are part of a larger grouping may also be eligible under Criterion C, as contributing elements to a district as representative examples of a specific style of architecture and of its property type. In both instances integrity of design, materials and workmanship associated with its period of significance is necessary.

I. NAME OF PROPERTY TYPE: AUXILIARY SUPPORT RESOURCES

II. General Description Auxiliary Support Resources are buildings and structures that are important in the viability of rail-reliant commercial and industrial areas. They include government, utilities, and transportation facilities and encompass buildings, structures, objects and sites. They represent the types of support services essential for the efficient operation of freight districts and associated industrial manufacturing, distribution and storage of raw materials and manufactured goods. Buildings in this property type usually are simple in form and, when architectural stylistic devises are incorporated in the design, they are usually restrained decorative treatments. In some instances, property types associated with government or transportation services such as depots, post offices, and fire and police stations have popular commercial "high style" architectural treatments of the era in which they were built. It is not unusual for these buildings to be the design of an architect. With the exception of buildings associated with public and private utilities, the buildings in this property type tend to be small one- or two-story buildings.

Because of the diversity of the buildings and structures, objects and sites that fall within this function based property type, a number of different types of alterations are common. The most common alterations to buildings of this property type are the alteration and replacement of window, door, and vehicular bay openings with masonry, glass block, or wood or metal

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Section F Page 8 Railroad Related Historic Commercial and Industrial Resources in Kansas City, Missouri Jackson County, Missouri

sheathing. Due to continuous flooding over the years, many of the earlier examples demonstrate widespread use of these treatments. Nevertheless, in the majority of these extant buildings the original openings are intact and the rhythm of windows and bays continues to be readable. Because the majority of these resources have long-term use in their original function, these buildings and structures often have alterations due to changes in technology. It is not unusual for these buildings to have small additions on secondary facades. Those resources associated with rail transportation and the manufacture of power or the treatment of water may have an assortment of small, one-story outbuildings and structures used for storage, to house equipment, to move raw materials, and to house individuals overseeing operations on the site. These small-sized resources may reflect changes in technology. They also provide clues to the original function and operation of the resource.

Examples of this property type occur in districts near or adjacent to railroad freight services consisting of numerous related commercial buildings, usually in low-lying areas that have an even or gradual grade. These areas in Kansas City are typically near rivers. They can be divided into the following functional sub-types.

A. Government Buildings This property sub-type includes post office and police and fire protection facilities located in industrial/commercial areas. The buildings are seldom more than three-stories in height and are often small in comparison to the commercial and industrial buildings of the streetscape. Police and fire stations typically have a vehicular bay or bays on the primary fa9ade as well as first floor administrative space. Fire stations usually have residential space above. Post office facilities are also relatively small, often serving as sub-stations to the area. They have public space off of the primary fa9ade and private space to the rear and on the upper floors. They usually feature a distinct loading area accessible to vehicular traffic. It is not unusual for these buildings to be the work of an architect or to reflect popular architectural styles of the era in which they were erected.

B. Utilities Buildings Industrial buildings associated with the provision of electrical and steam power as well as water treatment facilities can be found in commercial and industrial areas in railroad freight districts. Both municipal and private utility companies erected these buildings and structures in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries to accommodate the city's growing industrial and commercial needs. In Kansas City they are located on the edge of commercial and industrial freight districts near a riverbank. Those involved with the manufacture of power tend to be among the largest buildings in freight areas. The larger of these resources feature vast open interior spaces for housing equipment while office space is limited to small areas. It is not unusual for these buildings to have smaller auxiliary additions or structures on secondary facades. Many have an assortment of small

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outbuildings and structures. The most typical alteration is to the site to accommodate changes in operation or technology. They feature masonry construction and their restrained architectural styles reflect the era in which they were built.

C. Transportation Resources The Transportation Resources property sub-type consists of properties associated with the provision of rail- or road-related access within railroad freight areas. Structures and objects in this property sub-type comprise the street and rail systems found in industrial and commercial freight districts. The buildings of this property type appear along streetscapes or rail lines. Rail-related resources include railroad depots, terminals, freight houses, rail spurs, bridges, viaducts and associated infrastructure found in freighting districts. Road-related resources include garages, roads, streets, alleys, and bridges providing vehicular access to and within industrial and commercial rail freight areas. Because of the diversity of this property type, there are a number of different types of alterations that may have occurred over a period of time. Most changes are in response to growth in industrial areas, changing patterns of usage, and the updating of infrastructure. The most common alteration is often to the immediate setting of these resources. Roadrelated resources may have alterations relating to materials, size, and changing of curbs and sidewalks. Transportation related buildings may have been altered due to change in use. Alteration of these resources may reflect patterns common to the industrial and commercial buildings in general.

III. Significance Extant buildings, structures, sites and objects that constitute this property type represent public and privately owned infrastructure, government agencies and utilities crucial to the operation of freight areas. As such, they contribute to an understanding of how commercial and industrial railroad freight areas functioned. Many of these resources reflect the technological evolution of rail transportation, manufacturing and utilities. Property sub-types associated with railroad and vehicular transportation are significant for their association with modes of transportation that facilitated the manufacture, distribution and storage of raw materials and man-made goods. They have direct associations with the historic contexts, "The Evolution of Kansas City Railroad Freight Industry, 1859-1950" and "Commercial and Industrial Architecture in Kansas City's Railroad Freight Districts 1869-1950." Extant examples of these buildings, structures and sites date from the period of significance from 1865-1950.

Resources in this property type are eligible for listing on the National Register for their local significance under Criteria A in the areas of Commerce as important components in the operation of industrial and commercial freight areas. They are significant under Criterion C in the area of Architecture and/or engineering as examples of their property type. Buildings may also be eligible individually as representative of a particular style of architecture or for their engineering.

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They may contribute to the architectural integrity of a district of other property types significant in architecture and erected during a certain time period.

III. Registration Requirements To qualify for listing under National Register Criteria A and/or C resources in this property type must retain a strong integrity of association and location. The resource must be located in areas of Kansas City which were associated with the manufacture, distribution and storage of goods and merchandise that relied on railroad freighting services.

For resources in this property type to be individually eligible for listing on the National Register for their significance under Criterion A for Commerce, they must be an excellent example of their property sub-type, possessing the distinct characteristics that qualify it as this sub-type. Because the majority of the buildings in this property type are one or two stories or are large utilities buildings that feature restrained architectural styling, these resources must retain a high degree of architectural integrity in their setting, design and materials. Alteration to large buildings in the utility building sub-type should be viewed in the context of all the areas of integrity. Additions to buildings are acceptable if they are on secondary elevations or reflect technological changes during the period of significance. For structures and objects in this property type to be individually eligible for listing on the National Register, they also must be an excellent example of their property sub-type A high percentage of the resource's historic design, materials, form and setting must be intact. In particular, the resource must be able to clearly and substantially communicate its original function. In addition to these requirements, in order to be eligible for individual listing under Criterion C, the resource must be an excellent example of its particular property sub-type and of a specific style of architecture and retain a high degree of integrity in materials and architectural elements that define the style.

Buildings, structures, sites, and objects in this property type that are eligible for listing as contributing properties to a district must, at a minimum, retain architectural and structural features that tie the property to its original function and period of significance. Parts of larger systems, such as railroad tracks, must be of sufficient size and integrity to communicate their function as part of the larger system. Alterations to primary facades of larger buildings are acceptable if they do not alter a significant portion of the fa9ade and the original appearance of the fa9ade can be restored. If infill of original fenestration openings occurs, it should not destroy or obscure the original openings. The property must also be a representative example of its property sub-type, possessing the distinct characteristics that qualify it as this sub-type. In addition to these requirements, to be eligible for listing under Criteria C as part of a larger grouping, contributing buildings must also be a representative example of a specific style of architecture and retain sufficient integrity of design, materials and workmanship to represent the style.

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G. Geographical Data

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Railroad Related .Historic Commercial and Industrial Resources in Kansas City, Missouri Jackson County, Missouri

The geographical limits of the Multiple Property group is the corporate limits of the City of Kansas City, Missouri

H. Summary of identification and Evaluation Methods

The multiple property listing of railroad related historic commercial and industrial resources in Kansas City, Missouri is based upon the results of the city's survey plan and several cultural resource surveys. The Historic Resources Survey Plan of Kansas City prepared by the Kansas City Landmarks Commission in association with Thomalson and Associates Preservation Planners and Three Gables Preservation in September 1992 provided information on identified historic contexts and property types associated with transportation, industry and commerce in Kansas City. Three surveys prepared for the Kansas City, Missouri Landmarks Commission --The Central Industrial District Survey conducted by Melaine A. Betz in 1988, the Midtown Survey conducted by Sherry Piland and Ellen U guccioni between 1981 and 1984, and the Westside Survey completed in 1994 by Richa Wilson, Laura Weston and Kristina Van Vleck -- provided information related to specific industrial and commercial enclaves along rail freight corridors in Kansas City. A Study to Determine the National Register Eligibility of Properties in the Crossroads Area Kansas City, Missouri prepared by Historic Preservation Services, L.L.C. in 1999-2000 provided updated information rail related industrial and commercial contexts and property types in the area around the Union Station terminal. In addition, the following National Register nomination forms provided information related to industrial and commercial buildings: "Jansen-Salsbery Laboratories," "Kansas City Union Station," "Live Stock Exchange Building," "Old Town Historic District," "Produce Exchange Building," "Wholesale District," and the "West 9th Street and Baltimore Avenue District." Dr. George Ehrlich's, text, Kansas City, Missouri. An Architectural History 1826-1990 provided additional information on historical and architectural contexts. At the River's Bend A History of Kansas City, Independence and Jackson County by Sherry Lamb Schirmer and Richard McKinzie published in association with the Jackson County Historical Society in 1982 provided information on general themes and historic contexts.

Three historic contexts emerged that conform to three major themes that occurred within the period of significance of the rail-related industrial and commercial districts and their extant property types. They are: 1) The Evolution of Kansas City Railroad Freight Industry, 1859- 1950; 2) Commercial and Industrial Businesses located near Rail Freight Facilities, 1865-1950 and 3) Commercial and Industrial Architecture in Kansas City's Railroad Freight Districts 1869-1950. Knowledge gained by inspection of properties located in the four major rail-related industrial and commercial areas in Kansas City, Missouri contributed to the evaluation of architectural integrity. The analysis of property types for similar resources in St. Joseph documented in "Historic Resources of St. Joseph, Buchanan County, Missouri (amendment)" provided insight into criteria and integrity issues.

The National Register district nomination, "Crossroads Historic Freight District" submitted with this Multiple Property form is part of a phased approach to nomination of properties and districts which have direct associations with the contexts and property types establised in this submission. The Kansas City Missouri Economic Development Corporation sponsored nomination of the Crossroads Historic Freight District as part of an economic development

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strategy to revitalize urban core commercial neighborhoods through use of incentives targeted to specific areas. the National Register program staff of the Missouri Department of Natural Resources Historic Preservation Program provided assistance in guiding this project and in the development of the Multiple Property Submission. In particular, their interest in the relationship between the development of specific industrial and commercial property types and the presence of railroad freight lines and facilities, helped define the thematic approach to the MPS. The Crossroads Historic Freight District is one of numerous industrial/commercial enclaves along railroad freight lines that are undergoing active redevelopment and are part of ongoing city planning efforts in determining incentive packages for environmental abatement and protection of historic resources that is linked to Kansas City's Comprehensive Plan, approved by the City Council in 1997. Because these properties are in areas with significant environmental contamination, identification and documentation of significant resources and property types will aid in evaluation during the federal 106 process mandated by the National Preservation Act. In addition, documentation and designation is an important element in the city's economic development program, in particular the use of federal and Missouri rehabilitation tax credit program in conjunction with other incentive programs.

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Section I Page 1 Railroad Related Historic Commercial and Industrial Resources in Kansas City, Missouri Jackson County, Missouri

Bibliography

Betz, Melanie A. "Central Industrial District Survey and Final Report." Kansas City: Kansas City, Missouri Landmarks Commission, 1988.

Brown, Theodore. A Frontier Community: Kansas City to 1870. Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1963.

Brown, A. Theodore and Lyle W. Dorsett. K. C.: A History of Kansas City, Missouri. Boulder; Pruett Publishing Company, 1978.

City Planning and Development Department Historic Preservation Management Division of Kansas City, Missouri; Thomason and Associates Preservation Planners and Three Gables Preservation. "Historic Resources Survey Plan of Kansas City." Kansas City: Kansas City, Missouri Landmarks Commission of Kansas City, Missouri, 1992.

Droege, John A. Passenger Terminals and Trains. New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, Inc., 1916.

Ehrlich, George. Kansas City, Missouri. An Architectural History 1826-1990. Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1992.

Ehrlich, George. "Partnership Practice and the Professionalization of Architecture in Kansas City, Missouri." Missouri Historical Review LXXIV, 4 (July 1980).

Fitch, James Marston. American Building The Historical Forces That Shaped It. New York: Schocken Books, 1973.

Halberstadt, Hans and April Halberstadt. The American Train Depot and Roundhouse. Osceola, WI: Motorbooks International Publishers, 1995.

The History of Jackson County, Missouri. Kansas City, MO: Union Historical Company, Birdsall, Williams & Company, 1881.

Kansas City Star, December 1, 1926. Obituary of Col. Charles F. Morse. Kansas City Star Clipping Scrapbook. Missouri Valley Room Special Collections. Kansas City, Missouri Public Library.

Lund, George W. and Associates/AIA/Architects and Sarah F. Schwenk, Historical Research and Management Services, "Chicago and Alton Depot Independence Missouri Evaluation and Feasibility Study." Kansas City: American Institute of Architects Kansas City Chapter, July 1993.

McCandless, Perry. A History of Missouri Volume II 1820-1860. Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1972.

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Section I Page 2 Railroad Related Historic Commercial and Industrial Resources in Kansas City, Missouri Jackson County, Missouri

Montgomery, Rick and Shirl Kasper. Kansas City An American Story. Kansas City, MO: Kansas City Star Books, 1999.

Parsons, Stanley B. "Railroad Hub," At the River's Bend A History of Kansas City, Independence and Jackson County, Sherry Lamb Schirmer and Richard McKinzie. Woodland Hills California: Windsor Publications Inc. in association with the Jackson County Historical Society, 1982.

Piland, Sherry and Ellen J.Uguccioni. "Midtown Survey." Kansas City, MO: Kansas City, Missouri Landmarks Commission, 1984.

Poppeliers, John C.; S. Allen Chambers, Jr., and Nancy B. Schwartz. What Style Is it A Guide to American Architecture. Washing D.C.: National Trust For Historic Preservation Preservation Press, 1983.

Rifkind, Carol. A Field Guide to American Architecture. New York: Times Mirror New American Library, 1980.

Sachs, David H. and George Ehrlich. Guide to Kansas Architecture. Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 1996.

Schirmer, Sherry Lamb and Richard McKinzie. At the River's Bend A History of Kansas City, Independence and Jackson County. Woodland Hills, California: Windsor Publications Inc. in association with the Jackson County Historical Society, 1982.

Wilson, Richa, Laura Weston and Kristina Van Vleck. "Westside Neighborhood Survey Report." Kansas City: Kansas City, Missouri Landmarks Commission, 1994.

Wilson, William H. The City Beautiful Movement in Kansas City. Kansas City, MO: Lowell Press, 1990.

NPS Fonn 10-900-b (March 1992)

United States Department of the Interior Nationa l Park Service


OMB No. 1024-0018

This form is used for documenting multiple property groups relating to one or several historic contexts. See instructions in How to Complete the Multiple Property Documentation Form (National Register Bulletin 168). Complete each item by entering the requested information. For additional space, use continuation sheets (Form 10-900-a). Use a typewriter, word processor. or computer to complete all items.

New Submission ..L Amended Submission

A. Name of Multiple Property Listing

Rai lroad Related Historic Commercial and Industrial Resources in Kansas City, Missouri

B. Associated Historic Contexts

(Name each associated historic context, identifying theme, geographical area, and chronological period for each.)

The Evo lution of Kansas City Rai lroad Freight Industry, 1859- 1970 Commercial and Industrial Businesses Located Near Rail Freight Facilities, 1865-1970 Commercial and Industrial Architecture in Kansas City's Railroad Freight Districts 1869-1970

C. Form Prepared by

name/title Sally F. Schwenk, Sally Schwenk Associates, Inc street& number 112 West Ninth Street, Suite 510 tclephone_----'8'--'l"""6-"-2=2'--'l"""'-2"""'6'"""7-=2 city or town Kansas City state MO zip code 64 l 05

D. Certification

As the designated authority under the National Histonc PreseNation Act of 1966. as amended, I hereby certify that this documentation form meets the National Register documentation standards and sets forth requirements for the listing of related properties consistent with the National Register criteria This subm1ss1on meets the procedural and professional requirements set forth in 36 CFR Part 60 and the Secretary of the Interior's Standards and Guidelines for Archeology and Historic Preservation. ( ) See continuation sheet for additional comments )

7'}.7_ ' /M7./7 . . / r /r:l :,, /~ ct. ~..?~--<----· Ocf /5, Zo/O

Signature and title of certifying official Date

State or Federal agency and bureau

I hereby certify that this multiple property documentation form has been approved by the National Register as a basis for evaluating related properties for listing in the National Register

Signature of the Keeper Date

=======================:=====================-=========================== NPS Fenn 10-900-b (March 1992)

OMB No 1024-0018



Page1_

Table of Contents for Written Na rra tive

Railroad Related Historic Commercial and Industrial Resources in Kansas City, Missouri Jackson County

Provide the following information on continuation sheets. Cite the letter and the title before each section of the narrative. Assign page numbers according to the instructions for continuation sheets in How to Complete the Multiple Property Documentation Fonm (National Register Bulletin 16B). Fill in page numbers for each section in the space below.

E. Statement of Historic Contexts (I f more than one historic context is documented, present them in sequential order.)

Page Numbers 1

The Evolution of Kansas City Railroad Freight Industry, 1859-1970 2 Commercial and Industrial Businesses located near Rail Freight Facilities, 1865-1970 13 Commercial and Industrial Architecture in Kansas City' s Railroad Freight Districts 1869-1970 22

F. Associated Property Types (Provide description, significance. and registration requirements.)

Industrial Faci li ties and Commercial Distribution Bu ildings I Office and Sales Buildings 6 Auxi liary Support Resources 9


H. Summary of Identification and Evaluation Methods (Discuss the methods used in developing the multiple property listing.)

I. Major Bibliographical References (List major written works and primary location of additional documentation: State Historic Preservation Office, other State agency, Federal agency, local government. university, or other. specifying repository.)

========================================================================= Paperwork Reduction Act Statement: This infonmation is being collected for applications to the National Register of Historic Places to nominate properties for listing or detenmine eligibi lity for listing, to list properties, and to amend existing listings. Response to this request is required to obtain a benefit in accordance with the National Historic Preservation Act, as amended (16 U.S.C. 470 et seq.). Estimated Burden Statement: Public reporting burden for this fonm is estimated to average 120 hours per response including the time for reviewing instructions, gathering and maintaining data. and completing and reviewing the form. Direct comments regarding th is burden estimate or any aspect of this fonm to the Chief, Administrative Services Division. National Park Service. P.O. Box 371 27. Washington. DC 20013-7127, and the Office of Management and Budget, Paperwork Reductions Project (1 024-0018). Washington, DC 20503

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E. Statement of Historic Contexts

PREFACE

OMB No. 1024-00 18


Kansas City, Missouri became, in the last half of the nineteenth century, one of the nation 's major railroad hubs.

The city's central location made it an ideal division point for nearly all of the nation's rail lines. An immediate

consequence of the city's link to the national transportation and service corridors was local and regional industrial

development, commercial growth and a rapid growth in population. The growth and evolution of the city's terminal

fac ilities reflected Kansas City's dominance as a national rail hub. Their location within the city also determined the

placement of factories, wholesale houses and the speed and ease with which freight and passenger traffic could be

handled. 1 "Railroad Related Historic Commercial and Industrial Resources in Kansas City, Missouri" represent

a unique body of property types located near freight lines, depots and terminals which developed as a result of Kansas

City's evolving role as a national railroad hub. These buildings and structures have significant associations with the

history of local, state, regional and national commerce, industry and transportation. In Kansas C ity, distinct

commercial/industrial districts emerged adjacent to rail lines along the river flats- areas that had a gradual rise and fall

in grade. Today, four distinct areas still remain: I) the original river landing ·'Old Town" area east of the Hannibal

Bridge; 2) the West Bottoms, a low area west of the city's business center where the Kaw (Kansas) and Missouri rivers

merge; 3) the Mid-Town ·'Crossroads area" no11h of the 1914 Union Station Terminal and its associated yards and

tracks to the east, west and south, and 4) the Blue River Valley in the eastern part of the city roughly bounded by

Independence Avenue on the north and U.S. 40 Highway on the south. [Figure I.] Each of these areas contains unique

collections of commercial and industrial property types including manufacturing and processing facilities, industrial and

commercial warehouses, energy and communication facilities, agricultural storage facilities, rail-related and road

related structures and objects, office buildings, financial institutions. government buildings, specialty stores, hotels.

saloons and restaurants. A large number of the resources share a continuum of architectural styles dating from the late

1870s through the post-World War II time period and ending in 1970 when the railroad as a primary mover of freight

and passengers was ending. As a whole they have associations with the evolution of the city's industrial and

commercial development and, because of the integrity of their character defining features, serve as tangible symbols of

the impact of the railroad on Kansas City evolution from Anglo-American frontier settlement to a nationally significant

rail center.

William H. Wilson, The City Beautiful i\.fovement in Kansas City (Kansas City, MO: Lowell Press. l 990). 91.

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NATIONAL REG ISTER OF HISTORIC PLACES CONTINUATION SHEET

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lllSTORICAL CONTE XTS

The Evolution of Kansas City Railroad Freight Industry, 1859 - 1970

Commercial and Industrial Businesses Located Near Rail Freight Facilities, 1865- 1970

Commercial and Industrial Architecture in Kansas City's Railroad Freight Districts, 1869-1970

THE EVOLUTION OF KANSAS CITY RAILROAD FREIGHT INDUSTRY 1859 - 1970

KANSAS C ITY 'S EVOLUTION FROM RIVER TO RAIL T RANSPORTATION

During the last half of the nineteenth century and into the first decades of the twentieth century, the rai lroad

revolutionized America, expand ing settlement, trade, commerce, and communication networks. In Missouri ,

railroad construction captured the interest of public leaders as early as the 1840s. It was not, however, until the 1850s that economic growth made financing of rail lines feasible. At that time, supporters of a transcontinental

railroad system influenced the Missouri General Assembly to fund a state program of railroad construction. The

first bonds, issued in 1851 , provided loans to construct a rai l line from Hannibal to St. Joseph and a line from St.

Lou is to western Missouri . Despite these initial efforts, difficu lty in sel ling bonds coupled with waste and corru ption s lowed construction and, four years later, there was less than 100 miles of track in the state. By the onset

of the Civil War, rai lroad companies added an additional 700 mi les of track. Immediately after the war

construction sped up and, between 1865 and 1870, various companies added another 2,000 miles of track.2

The development of rail lines in Kansas City mirrored that of the state. Strategically located at the confluence of the

Missouri and Kaw (Kansas) rivers. Kansas City, Missouri stood poised at the end of the Civil War to be a major

center for trading and overland outfitting activities. Formally organized in 1850, the town was a thri ving river port

with a nucleus of community leaders determined to dominate economic development in the region through the estab lishment of their community as a major railroad center.

The effo1t to provide continuous railroad service between Kansas City and St. Louis began in 1859 when representatives of the Missouri Pacific Railroad asked the Jackson County Courr' to issue railroad bonds for

construction of rail lines. Although construction began in the area the next year. it '"'as not until after the Civil War

that rail service linked the two cities. Anticipating completion of the \llissouri Pacific line across \llissouri,

Perry l\itcCandless, ·I H isrm:1· of tlissouri l'o/wne II J 82{}-/ 860 (Columbia: L' n iversit] of Missouri Press. I 972 ). I -16: and Theodore Brown. A Frontier Community: Kansas City to J 870 (Columbia: University of Missouri Press. I 963), I I 6-117. ' The Jackson County Court was an administrative body.

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Railroad Related Historic Commercial and Industrial Resources in Kansas City, Missouri Jackson County, \ifissouri

construction began in 1864 on a line to Lawrence, Kansas -- the first railroad to be built west from Missouri. In 1864 the Kansas Pacific entered Kansas City, followed in 1865 by the Missouri Pacific. In the eastern part of

Jackson County, the Kansas City, Independence and Lexington Railway Company, a rail line formed in 1867, bu ilt a narrow gauge railroad to Sedalia by way of Lexington.~

Even before the Civil War, it was evident that the municipality in western Missouri or eastern Kansas that secured a bridge across the Missouri River that tied in with northern railroad routes through Chicago would dominate

regional rail traffic. Federal legislation in l 862-63 to create a transcontinental railroad system left the choice of a

Missouri River terminus open. Leavenworth, Kansas; St. Joseph, Missouri; and Kansas City, Missouri emerged as

the main contenders. Through a complex series of political maneuvers affecting St. Lou is rail interests and contacts with Boston financiers associated with the Burlington lines west out of Chicago, the Kansas City business

community secured financing for the bridge. The opening of the Hannibal Bridge near Kansas City 's commercial

center in 1869 effectively linked the city to the great trading networks of St. Louis and Chicago and to the markets of the Southwest.

The new rail traffic drew people to the West along passenger lines and freighting services offered both import and export trade opportunities. Kansas City rapidly became a .. shipping hub .. between the eastern and western regions

of the United States. Just as the populous East required the agricultural products of the West, the growing

communities of the developing West required the manufactu red goods of the East. 5

An immediate consequence of the city's link to national transportation and service corridors was local and regional industrial development, commercia l growth and a rapid growth in population. Prior to the Civil War the city's

population stood at about 3,000. By the completion of the Hannibal Bridge. the figure increased to over 25,000.

That number more than doubled during the next decade.6

R.\ILROAD DEVELOPMENT ALONG THE TOWN OF KANSAS " OLD TOW'.'! AREA"

The access to primary rail lines and the growing local agricu ltural businesses, particu larly those relating to grain and livestock, placed Kansas City on the verge of becoming a national center for livestock and grain trade. Related

industries. such as meatpacking and milling, rapid I:: emerged as a result of the cit) 's ne'' economic environment.

George W. Lund. Lund and Associates, AIA Architects and Sarah F. Schwenk. I listorical Research and \ifanagement Services ... Chicago and Alton Depot Independence Missouri Evaluation and Feasibility Study" (Kansas City: American Institute of Architects Kansas City Chapter. July 1993 ), 7-8. ~ George Ehrlich, 1\..1.msas City .. ~fissouri. An .~rchitect ural H istm}· I "?:!ti-1990 (Columbia: U niversit) of Missouri Press, 1992), 29-31. h Wilson, 194.

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Railroad Related Historic Commercial and Industrial Resources in Kansas City, Missouri Jackson Counry, Missouri

In less than a decade rail construction, warehouses, granaries, broker's offices, and manufacturing concerns

crowded the area surrounding the city's original rails on the south bank of the Missouri River near the Hannibal Bridge. [Figure 2.] Originally platted as ''Old Town" the area7 adjacent to the levee on the south bank of the

Missouri River and immediately east of the Hannibal Bridge was the first platted parcel of the Town of Kansas and is an area that enjoys continual commercial use since 1839. Included in the area was the original town square site,

city market, cemetery, Board of Trade, and early government bu ildings as well as warehouses, commission agents

offices, retail establ ishments, hotels, saloons, and small manufacturing concerns. Originally aligned toward the Missouri River, the coming of the railroad in 1869 changed the orientation of Old Town and of industrial

development. Kansas City's government, business and retail center, like those in many river towns, turned away from

its first business district on the levee and moved inland.

The Hannibal Bridge·s location on the Missouri River levee near the city' s original river landing was a logical

place to link the rail lines that entered the city along the East Bottoms8 on the southern banks of the Missouri River

to the West Bottoms along the Kaw Ri ver. The new bridge funneled its track to the West Bottoms via a deep cut at

the western end of the levee, committing this area to railroad use and to industry dependent upon rail service. 9 As a result, commercial and industrial concerns began to spread west\vard from the old levee on the south side of the

Missouri River to the flats bet\Veen the city's western bluffs and the Kaw River.

Many businesses utilizing the available rails, continued to operate in the Old Town area. And new manufacturing concerns, such as the Peet Brothers Soap manufacturing company, continued to locate in the area. Old Town continued

to function as a warehouse and light-manufacturing district throughout the late nineteenth centu1y. During this period a

number of large warehouse and distribution businesses erected large loft-style buildings in the area. After a disastrous

tlood in 1903, many retail and commercial businesses rebuilt further south and the residential population of the area declined. During this period the area became essentially an industrial and warehousing district with a number of brick

commercial buildings erected beginning in the first decades of the t\Ventieth century and continuing through the midcentury. 10 Active freight lines and spurs continued to be used into the t\Venty-first century. weathering the floods of

1951 and 1993.

The .. Old Town Historic District'· was listed on the :Vational Register of His/Om: Places June 7. 1978. Prior to the construction of the Hannibal Bridge railroad lines entered the city from the east along low-lying areas with

a gradual rise in grade. The river front area east of the Old Town was called the "East Bottoms." ·> Ehrlich. 29 10 Sherry Piland, "Old Town Historic District,. National Register Nomination Form. The district was listed in the National Register of Historic Places on June 6, 1978.

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RA ILROAD D EVELOPMENT IN THE WEST BOTTOMS

OMR No. 1024-00 18

Railroad Related Historic Commercial and Industrial Resources in Kansas City. Missouri Jackson County, Missouri

Four years before completion of the Hannibal Bridge in May 1865, Kansas City's Journal of Commerce predicted

that the base of business in Kansas City wou ld move from the levee to the river bottoms in "West Kansas,''11

[Figure 2.] The comment reflected what Kansas City's commercial leaders knew -- development of rail lines in the

city would be concentrated along the natural gradients in the flood plains. These areas included the landing levee,

the East Bottoms alo ng Missouri River and the West Bottoms on the Kaw River. In anticipation of this, the Kansas

City, Missouri City Council voted in 1865 to issue $60,000 worth of bonds to finance opening Third, Fourth, Fifth and

Twelfth Streets from the city's commercial district into the West Bottoms. 12

In 1867, the Missouri & Pacific and the Kansas & Pacific railroads erected their depot and a hotel called the State

Line House in the Bottoms. A year later, Octave Chanute, the architect/engineer who designed the Hannibal

Bridge, se lected a s ite in the West Bottoms for the depot for the Kansas City & Cameron Railroad. the line which

linked the city via the Hannibal Bridge to the Hannibal & St. Joseph Railroad. 13

The establishment of the West Bottoms as the city's primary industrial dis trict began in earnest a few years later in

1868. That year the Hannibal and St. Joseph Railroad agreed to ship Texas Longhorn cattle to Chicago meatpackers

from ho lding pens in Kansas City. After that, the movement of cattle through Kansas C ity to eastern markets grew

so rapidly that in the two years thereafter, the railroads running eastward from Kansas quickly bu ilt new stockyards

for receiving and transfer of s tock . 1 ~ By 1870. I 00,000 head passed through the railroad handling yards. 15 At its

peak in the 1920s. only the Union Stockyards in Chicago were larger.

In 1878, eight cooperating rail lines replaced Chanute ·s earlier utilitarian stationhouse with a three-story, Second

Empire style station known as the Union Depot. The new station firmly established the West Bottoms as the city"s

and the regio n ·s primary manufacturing and distributing center. 16 Kansas City was not unique in its need for new

rail facilities at this time. The 1880s ushered in a period of national railroad rh al~ and depot expansion. During

Also ini1ially called .. the flats .. as well as the ··west Bonoms:· the name of the area otliciall) changed in the 1930s to the Central lndusrrial District. '' Ehrlich, 29. i; Ibid. 11 The Histol}' cf Jackson Counry. ,\.fissouri (Kansas Ci(). MO: Union 11 istorical Compan), Birdsall. Williams & Company. 1881). 496. '~ Sherry La1nb Schirn1er and Richard McKinLie~·" .411he River's Bend A Histo1:\· oj l\ansas C'11;. Independence and Jackson Coun1y (Woodland Hills, California: Windsor Publications Inc. in association \\ith the Jackson CounC)' Historical Sociery. 1982), 44. lb Ehrlich. 29-31.

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NATIONAL REGISTER OF HISTORIC PLACES CONTINUATI ON SHEET

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this decade Missouri rai lroad mileage increased to approximately 4,000 miles. Competing lines built their own depots and it was not unusual for some small towns to end up with three or four depots. Larger cities, like Kansas

City, often included one or more union terminals. 17

A serious national depression in 1893 interrupted this progress. The depression, brought on in part by railroad

competition and speculation, forced rail companies to consolidate their resources during the next decade, an effort that increased the efficiency of rail operations. The ·'economy of scale'' brought on by consol idation also freed

more funds fo r the construction of single, monumental central ··u nion .. stations. By 1900, most of the nation 's

nineteenth century depots and stations were obsolete. The growth of rail lines, the high number of passengers and freighters served and the widespread changes in technology, such as the use of electricity in urban centers. changed

the operation of railroads. A new wave of depot construction ensued.18

Kansas City' s Union Depot reflected th is trend. Constructed to manage passenger and freight traffic for an estimated regional population of 59,000, the Union Depot in Kansas City's West Bottoms faced the demands of a

population that, by 1890, exceeded 171 ,000 and by 1910 escalated to 330, 712. 19 At this time, 150 passenger trains

went in or out of the Union Depot daily, while the nearby freight yards handled more than 22.000 cars every

twenty-four hours.20

The burden of the growing freight business and passenger traffic increas ingly disrupted train schedules and the

efficient operation of the rail lines in the East Bottoms. The demands on a rac ility designed to serve a population

about one-fi frh its current size. the ongoing deterioration of the Union Depot and the limitations of its site prompted

civic leaders to lobby the Union Depot Company to construct a new rail terminal.

One of the greatest barriers to an improved and enlarged station was its location. Those traveling on rail lines

arri ving at the West Bottoms· depot encountered the stench of livestock pens. processing plants and manufacturing concerns. Shanties and trash filled the ravines along the bluffs. But. more important than passenger sensibilities was

rhe small size of the rail faci lities and the site ·s inability to meet the gro\\ ing demand for additional rail services.

Bounded on t\\O sides by riverbank and susceptible to flooding. the area contained. b} the mid-1880s. about all the

flans and April Halberstadt. The American Train Depvt und Rv11ndho11H! (Osceola. WI: :'v1otorbooks International Publishers. 1995). 79. I~ Ibid.

Wilson. 194. Other sources cite the 1910 figure at 2-18,381: and A. Theodore Brown and Lyle W. Dorsett. K. C.: A History of Kansas Cuy. 1\t/issoun (Boulder: Pruett Publishing Company, 1978). 183. '0 Stan le) B. Parsons, "Railroad Hub," At the Rii·er \Bend. I History of Kansas C '1ty. Independence and Jackson

County, Sherry Lamb Schirmer and Richard McKinzie (Wood land Hills Cal ifornia. Windsor Publications Inc. in association with the Jackson County Historical Society, 1982), 43.

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tracks it cou ld accommodate.21 At its peak in the 1920s, sixteen railroads converged at the yards. The stockyards

and milling operations continued to flourish through the 1940s. During World War 11 , Darby Steel Corporation

built most of the Landing Craft Tanks (LCTs) that were used in various amphibious invasions.

The first economic blow to the West Bottoms (by now called the Central Industrial District) came with

the end of World War II. When the extensive military construction ceased, over twenty thousand workers

lost their jobs. The second economic blow to the West Bottoms industrial role in the city came in 1951

with a major flood. Many meatpacking companies and supportive industries moved out of the area. The

Flood of 1951 decimated the stockyards, which never returned to their full size, particu larly as truck freighting stimulated location of smaller regional stockyards away from the central city. The yards in the West Bottoms closed

in 199 1. Nevertheless, manufacturing and processing, such as the flour milling industry, and warehousing

continued in operation and the area continues to function as Kansas City' s Central Industrial District with active rail lines and freight stations.

THE D EVELOPMENT OF T HE UNION STATION

The Union Depot Company, comprised primarily of out-of-town business concerns. responded to the crowded

situation in the East Bottoms throughout the last two decades of the nineteenth century with tedious deliberation. The flood of l 903 forced them to act and influenced their decision to seek a location fo r a new depot away from the

river bottoms and levee areas. They turned to an area to the southeast near a small station constructed in 1889 on

Grand Avenue that served the Kansas City Belt Railway.n [Figure 2.] By early 1905, the Kansas City Star reported

that all interested railroads agreed upon the location and cost of a new depot.~3 evertheless. a year later. dissention among the members and the delay in proceeding with construction of a new depot. prompted six

railroads to separate from the Un ion Depot Company and announce their intention to build a new station south of

the city·s retail district. Further negotiations ended with the July I 0. 1906 merger of the renegade lines. the Union

Depot Company. and the Kansas City Belt Railway Company into one company -- the Kansas City Terminal Railway Company. Twelve rai l companies now owned equal shares of the new corporation·s stock that. with t\"o

subsidiary companies. included al l of the lines then entering Kansas City.~4

! I Kansas City Star. December l. l 926. Obituary of Col. Charles F. Morse. Kunsus Cit1· Star Clipping Scrapbook. Missouri Valley Room Special Collections. Kansas City, Missouri Public Library. 1~ fhe depot was located near \\hat is today 22"J Street and Grand Boulevard. 1~ Wilson, 97. 1 1 John A. Droege. Passenger Terminals and Trains (New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company. Inc .. 1916). 92-93.

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The new company proceeded with plans to acquire a 44 acre site near Twenty-third and Main streets. The site ·s

broad expanse of ground cou ld accommodate a large number of tracks and was not prone to flooding. It was near the city's commercial district and nearby residential enclaves and accessible to the West Bottoms' rail yards.25

Moreover, it included rails installed earlier by the Kansas City Belt Railway Company that ran east out of the Bottoms through a cut to the proposed site.26

In 1906. the railroad executives approved preliminary plans for the station. Proceeding with the project required an amendment to the city charter that addressed such issues as construction of viaducts, rights-of-way and

improvements to the station 's surroundings. Negotiations between the railroad companies and the city council continued for the next three years. On July 7, 1909, the counci l approved the final plan, granting the Kansas City

Terminal Railway Company a 200 year franchise, authorization to run ·'through .. tracks, assigning the company

liabi lity for all land damages and responsibility for constructing 26 viaducts and 11 subways as well as an adjacent

park. The following September, city voters approved the plan.27

Designed and constructed according to the plans set forth by Jarvis Hunt and approved by the city. the Union

Station Terminal28 opened, after much delay, on October 30. 1914. The station and its facilities were impressive.

reflecting the Kansas City Terminal Railway Company' s ambitious plan for a new terminal that combined frei ght and passenger operations and provided convenient access to local interurban rail lines and trolleys. John A. Droege,

in his classic text on designing train terminals, commented on the undertaking,

The natural topography of Kansas City is so unfavorable for comprehensive railway development

and the number of railways to be served so great that the construction of the passenger stalion was

but part of an enormous scheme of freight and passenger 1erminal development the total cost of

which was approximately S-10. 000. 000. The final cost oft he terminal building alone was

SJ 1.000.000. 2')

The construction of the Union Station and its surrounding support services reoriented how the city functioned and

stimulated additional development, pa1ticularly in the area around the station . The "bottoms" continued as a major industrial and rail shipping area after the opening of the Union Station. As late as 1916 that location ·s rail sh ipping

facilities \\ere considered unequaled anywhere. At thi:. time trackage in the West Bottoms totaled 14 7 miles and all

'"

"I

Wilson. 91. 197: and Brown and Dorsett. 168. These lines became the artery of the new terminal. f....ansas Ci(r Star. December I. 1926. Wilson, 198. The Kansas City Union Station was listed in the National Register qf Historic P/acl!s on Februal) I. 1972. Droege, 93.

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twelve of the trunk line railroads serving Kansas City retained freight terminals and stations in the bottoms. all

located within a half-mile radius and on an all-level haul. 30

RA ILROAD F REIGHT LINES IN THE UNION STATION AN D CROSSROADS AREA

During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, what became known as the Crossroads area emerged as a

railroad-to-market center serving rail-reliant, and later, truck freighting-reliant commercial and industrial

businesses.11 The area, roughly bounded by Broadway on the west, Grand Avenue31 on the east, 15th Street

(Truman Road) on the north and the railroad tracks and spurs serving and accessing the Union Station on the south,

(including access to the an alignment of railroad tracks south of 22"d Street.) [Figure 3.] Of particular importance in

the estab lishment and evolution of commercial and industrial businesses in the Union Station/Crossroads area was

the construction of three railroad facil ities: the Chicago-Milwaukee & St. Paul Freight Depot, constructed in 1888

at 22"d Street and Baltimore: the Grand Avenue Station, constructed by the Kansas City Belt Railway in 1889-90,

near 22"d Street and Grand (now demolished); and the Union Station, on Pershing Boulevard (Twenty-fourth

Street), which opened in 1914.

The earliest development in the Crossroads area dates to the 1880s. During this decade a real estate boom

prompted the construction of the Grand Avenue Railway cable car along Grand Avenue and Main Street, linking

commerc ial and residential districts between the city market and Westport.33 Along this route commercial and

residential development occurred. The construction of the Grand Avenue Station and the Chicago-Milwaukee &

St. Paul Depot in the late 1880s spurred industrial development south of 20111 Street. Southwest Boulevard. which

connected Kansas C ity, Missouri, to Rosedale, Kansas, (now part o f Kansas City, Kansas) was another area of early

development in the Crossroads area. The boulevard paralleled Turkey Creek and. later. railroads tracks running

from Union Statio n west to the yards near the state line.

The announcement of plans in 1905-06 for a new Un ion Station further sti mulated new construction south of 20111

Street near the concentration of warehouses and manufacturing facilities erected du ring the previous two decades.~~ Commercial and industrial de' elopment gradually expanded north toward 17th Street and south towards 251

h Street

as the station neared completion. While construction activities slO\\ed during World War I. the pace of ne''

Melanie A. Betz. "'Central Industrial District Survey Final Report" (Kansas City. :vtO: Kansas City. Missouri Landmarks Commission. 1988). 15. •11 Sherry Piland and Ellen J. Uguccioni. ··Midtown Survey" (Kansas City. MO: Kansas City. Missouri Landmarks Commission. 1984 ). 20. 1! Renamed Grand Boulevard in the 1990s.

u Ibid .. 18. Ibid., 25.

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construction between the close of the war and the start of the Great Depression matched that seen earlier in the

decade.

The appearance of the Crossroads area changed considerably as a result of the construction of the new station. The

station site, at the intersection of Twenty-fourth and Main streets was an ugly wasteland cut by a meandering open

sewer named 0.K. Creek. A few warehouses fed by the "belt line,. stood nearby. Main Street, a bumpy wagon rut

over the "belt line'· tracks, led nowhere. The site presented practical challenges. Street and trolley crossings

frequently were "at grade" with the proposed rail lines. Existing viaducts over the tracks were narrow, iron

structures unable to carry heavy traffic. The existing land uses and infrastructure (or lack thereof) required the

construction of additional viaducts and subways -- a number in the immediate vicinity of the station. 35

In 1945. annual passenger traffic peaked at 678,363 . As train travel declined beginning in the 1950s. the city had

less and less need for a large train station. By 1973, only six trains carrying freight and/or passengers a day passed

through the station; a total of only 32,842 passengers a year used the facility,36 all passenger train service was now

run by Amtrak. In 1985 use of the Un ion Station ceased.

RAILROAD D EVELOPM ENT IN THE LITTLE BLUE RIVER VALLEY

The demand for manufactured goods created by a growing regional and national population triggered expanded

manufacturing and warehousing facilities in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The opening of the

Kansas City Bo lt and Nut Company in I 88i 7 marked the beginning of an industrial district in the Blue River

Valley on Kansas City's eastern boundary. [Figure 4.] Commercial growth in the area was slow. In the 1890s

English investors named part of the river valley after English steel towns - Sheffield. Leeds. Birmingham and

Manchester signi fy their invo lvement in metal works. (Figure 5.f8 I lowever. it was not until after the construction

of massive levees and creation of drainage districts after the 1903 flood that investors turned eastward to this

underdeveloped industrial and freighting area.·w

Wilson. 98 . .. Lin ion Station Timeline ... http: , www.unionstation.org, timeline.html (accessed June 15. 20 l 0) It became Sheffield Steel in the 1920s. was purchased by Amico (American Rolling Mill Company) Steel in the 1930s

and today is known as Armco Grinding Company. 18 William S. Worley. "Development of Industrial Districts in the Kansas City Region: From the Close of the Civil War to World War II" http· ' \Wv\\.whumkc.edtt WHMCKC PUBLICA f!O~S MCPPDDF worle)-1-28-93.pdf. (accessed June 18. 2010) .19 Schirmer, 49.

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The faith in flood protection efforts made the Blue Valley suddenly attractive to investors. Between 1905 and 1909

over 30 plants located in the Blue Valley. A high num ber of the manufacturing concerns locating in the area in vo lved metal process ing industries such as foundries, boiler making plants, and wire and structural steel

fabricators.~0 During the 1920s the Ford Motor Company 's Kansas City assembly plant located in Sheffield and the

General Motor's assembly plant located in Leeds. During the 1930s Butler manufacturing Company, stee l fabricators located adjacent to the Sheffield Annco Plant. All of these major industries, and others continued in

operation well into the 1970s By 1925_ the following railroad companies had freighc facilities in the area: Chicago. Mi lwaukee and St. Paul ; Chicago and Alton; Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe; Missouri Pacific; Kansas City

Terminal Railroad's Blue River Yard; and, later, the Kansas City Southern Railroad . All had existing lines in other

fre ight centers in the city.'11 The fre ight area continues in operation today, serving industrial and warehousing

bus inesses.

I MPACT O F HIGHWAY F REIG HTING ON RA ILROA D F REIGHT DISTRICTS

Beginning prior to the Civil War and continuing into the 1960s. the railroad played a decisive role in America's

social and economic development. After World War L growing competition from highways and waterways as we ll as increasingly stringent regu lation led to the rail industry's decline. One of the more dramatic related

deve lopments occurring between 1900 and 1920 was the phenomenal growth in the number of trucks which

increased from 700 in 1904 to I, I 07,639 in 1920. Before the onset of World War I, two truck manufacturers, the

White Motor Company and the Mack Company, produced trucks with up to 7.5 tons of carrying capac ity. Most of the early truck freighting occurred at a local leve l. supplementing the longer distance freight transportation

provided by the railroads. In 1915, the Trailmobile Company introduced the first four-wheel trailer designed to be

pulled by a truck tractor unit. During the World War I. the use of thousands of trucks constructed fo r military

purposes (in particular. the use of truck convoys). demonstrated the flexibility of trucks in moving large quantities of goods and supplies. and con finned the practical and economic feasibility of long distance truck travel. 12

By 1920. truck freighting transpo1t initially focused on less than full-load sh ipments. This changed with the emergence of the motor truck in the 1920s as a dominant mode of freight transportation. With the provision of rail

to-road access within railroad freight areas. wholesale houses. distribution centers. and warehouses in railroad

freight areas began to spcciali/e in breaking down loads from bo:x cars and transfe1Ting goods to trucks that could efficient!} and economical!} reach smaller regional markets. Beginning in the 1920s. ne\\ \\arehouses and regional

Ibid .. 41-47. II In formation dcri vcd from revie\\ of various historic map~ and atlases from di ffcrcnt an:h i \al and research rcpo~itorics .

Gene Smiley, ·'The U.S. Economy in the 1920s," El I.net. http: www.eh.net1cncyclopedia1contents1Smiley. I 920s. fina l.php (accessed May 28. 20 I 0).

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wholesale houses erected in or adjacent to railroad freight yards, with their combination of box car and truck

loading docks, constituted a distinct phase in the evolution of commercial buildings associated with freighting

services in Kansas City and other railroad distribution hubs.

As motor trucks began to compete with the railroad lines in hauling freight among city and industrial centers, it is

not coincidental that, during this period, road building became a standardized process based on a logarithmic

methodology, allowing good roads to be built just about anywhere. By 1924 , the necessity of a single, unified

system of highways became apparent. That year, the American Association of State Highway Officials passed a

resolution requesting the Secretary of Agriculture43 to investigate the possibility of creating a system of

standardized highways. At this time, a nationwide system of 250 all-weather highways already enab led travelers to

follow standardized routes throughout the United States. The Federal Aid Highway Act of 1925 established a

numerical system of identification for these routes known as the United States Highway System, or simply as "US

highways. "44

As the decade of the twenties advanced, the abandonment of branch railroad lines reflected the growing

competition from motor carriers on public highways. The arrival o f the truck freighting business ·'seriously altered

the position of the railroad in the national transportation system.''45 While railroads co ntinued to dominate the

nation's long-distance bulk transport freight business, a growing demand began for transporting small vo lume, more

frag ile and perishable shipments. As the country entered the Great Depress io n, companies came to appreciate the

greater flexibility of trucks. Unlike the railroads. trucks could, by th is time, carry small loads to almost any location

at any time. a llowing companies to de liver inventory fas ter than ever before .~6

The Great Depression

The trucki ng industry attracted employees as the economy collapsed and the number of trucking companies grew.

Throughout the 1930s, the industry boomed. Deve lopments in constructio n techniques improved roads erected by

counties and states under various federal Works Project Administration programs. As a result. the nation's highway

system connected longer distances. At the same time. advancements in automotive technology. and. particu larly the

perfection of the powerful and efficient diesel engine. made long-distance hauling more practical. The 1930s saw

43 The Bureau of Public Roads was in this department at the time. 4

·1 John Crandall, .. Trucks, l 920- I 970 From small early trucks to highway freighting.'· Suite I 0 I.

http: ' 'transportationhistory.suite I 0 l.com/article.cfm!trucks 1920 1970. (accessed May 28. 20 I 0).

JS Charles Cherington. -·Railroad Abandonment in Ne\\ England. 1921 -37:· The Journal oj Land & Puhlic L'tility Economics. 1-1. no I (Feb. 1938), I. http: \1\111.jstur.or~ -,table 315860:' f.11. 1..:'>~cd June.:::;, 2010).

J6 Crandall.

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larger engines. and new designs putting the weight of the engine over the front axle, improving weight distribution

and hauling capacity.

As early as 193 I, the motor truck industry, with its flexibi lity of movement and abil ity to undercut rail rates, began an intense competition with railroads-17 and grew so successful that, in 1935, Congress passed the Motor Carrier

Act, authorizing the Interstate Commerce Commission to regu late the trucking industry. The Act ·'establ ished

freight-hauling rate regulations, limited the number of hours that truckers were allowed to drive, and oversaw trucking company's range as well as the type of freight they could carry_,-is

By the end of the decade, planning fo r what is now known as the Dwight D. Eisenhower 1 ational System of Interstate and Defense Highways, commonly called "The Interstate System," began. The Federal-Aid Highway Act

of 1938 called for a feasibility study, which eventually advocated a 26. 700-mile interregional highway network. In

1941 , President Franklin D. Roosevelt appointed a ational Interregional Highway Committee, to evaluate the need

for a national expressway system.

World War II and Post-War Era

The entry of the United States into World War II interrupted the development of the interstate highway system.

However. during World War II, the trucking industry benefitted further by defense contracts that encouraged large.

heavy-duty truck vehicle production. As a resu lt, new engine designs, as well as trucks built for longer distances, higher speeds and heavier loads emerged after the war. During the post-war period. trucking gained significant

ground from the railroad industry. By 1950, the ratio of truck-to-train ton-mi les was twenty percent. twice that of

two years earlier.~9 At this time, the plan for interregional highways augmented the shift from rail to road. The

Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1944. enacted to strengthen the national defense. authorized creation of a 40.000 mile paved. all-weather highway network connecting major metropolitan areas. industrial centers. and border points with

major Canadian and Mexican routes.50

The dramatic incrca~e~ in the \Olume of transported goods in the immediate post-\\ar years set the stage for the trucking industl) to become a central element in the country's econom}. The Federal-Aid Higlrnay Act of 1952

P Ibid. iR RandomHistory.com.

1'' Roadway Express. Internet. Available from hl!Jh \\\\\\ tund111,;un1\...:r, ... <-llll11..,1rnp.111)-hht11nv-. R,1,1,(\\,t\-t\pr..;,,-In..-

1 HllJMll' I It L 1n html. Accessed 8 December 2009. 10 Dwight 0. Eisenhower National System of Interstate und Defense Highwuys. Internet. Available from b.!.llL \\ \\ \\ .111\\ a dl 11.:;,1 I\ programaJrnm intcr~tatc . ..: rm. 20 December, 2009.

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authorized the first fund ing specifica lly for System construction. Under the leadership of President Eisenhower, the

Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956 finally resolved the question of how to fund the Interstate System. This action served as a catalyst for the System's development and, ultimate ly, its completion.

COMl\llERClAL AND INDUSTRIAL BUSINESSES LOCATED NEAR RAIL FREIGHT FACILITIES, 1865-1970

The expansion of rail transportati on and industrial ization rapidly intensified after the end of the Civil War. Production needs during the war stimulated a shift from animal or waterpower to steam driven machines that

produced growing quantities of texti les, boots and transportation equipment. The shift to peacetime production was

a natural consequence of the return to prosperity after the war. By the 1870s, the nation· s urban populations were

large-scale consumers of manufactured and processed goods. The abundance of cheap factory made items meant that even families of modest means could afford to purchase a variety of ready-made goods. Concurrently, the

growing number of prosperous farmers in the West created a thri ving market fo r eastern goods while newly

mechanized western farms and large ranches in the Southwest supplied the grain and meat to feed the swelling

urban populations of the East. By the 1880s, the growing number of brick factory buildings throughout the East and Midwest testified to the nation' s rapid industrialization.51

Th us, in addition to the role of Kansas City as a railroad center, the city's economic deve lopment was very much

the product of the bounty of the region and its strategic location. The city received what fa rmers harvested and

stockmen ra ised in the surrounding area -- li vestock. grain. timber. seed -- passed them on or processed them into products people needed locally or. for an additional fee, shipped them to competitive eastern markets. At the same

time the city ·s business concerns received the manufactured and processed goods from the East. stored them (for a fee) and reallocated them (for a fee) to markets in the West . 5~

J\ tremendous increase in population accompanied the emergence of Kansas City in the post-Civil War period as a

major manufacturing and railroad distribution center for the products of the plains. The boom economy of the 1880s and the influx of native-born and foreign immigrants affected Kansas City as it did other urban centers in the final

decades of the nineteenth centur:. The city's population expanded ten-fold between 1870 and 1910. reaching nearl}

200.000. The greatest gro\\th in this period occurred bet\vecn 1880 and 1887 when the population doubled to 125.000.

~I Carol Rifldnd, A Field Ciu1Je to .-lmencan Architemire (:''-JC\\ York: Times Mirror f\je\\ American Library. 1980). 273, Schirmer, 47: and Rick ;'v1ontgomer) and Shirl Kasper, 1\.111.rns Cit) . In .-lmeric.m Stm') (Kansas Cit), :V10: Kansas Cit) Star Books, 1999). I 08. ~2 Schinner, 47.

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Section E Page 15 Railroad Related Historic Commercial and Industrial Resources in Kansas City. Missouri Jackson County. Missouri

creating a need fo r expanded city services as well as causing substantial physical changes in the community. During

this period, commercial, manufacturing and residential development became more clustered and grew in density.53

LIVESTOCK I NDUSTRY

As early as 1870, by virtue of its central location and rail connections, Kansas City became a terminus fo r the cattle trade. The development of th is industry had its roots in the condition of the national cattle market at the end of the

Civil War. Longhorn cattle herds, many of which suffered from parasites and diseases, crowded the ranges of the

Southwest. Soon, stockmen began driving these herds to rail junctures almost 800 miles to the northeast in central Missouri for shipping to packing houses in Chicago. Missouri farmers and livestock owners along the trails, fea ring

contamination of their own herds. opposed the trail drives and, as a result, incidents of open hostilities occurred.

oting these conditions and the progress of the Kansas Pacific Railroad stretching west from Kansas City, entrepreneur Joseph G. McCoy, established, in 1867, a stockyard in Abi lene. Kansas, then a primitive railhead

settlement. The Kansas Pacific Railroad agreed to pay McCoy a $5 commission fo r every cattle car that proceeded

eastward and the Hannibal and St. Joseph Rail road, in turn , agreed to ship the stock from Kansas City to Chicago

meatpackers. McCoy's depot for cattle provided a route for the cattlemen from the Southwest through the sparsely populated Indian Territory and Kansas countryside away from the ire of Missouri stockowners. It also cut hundreds

of mi les off the cattle drive.54

The large number of cattle passing through the Kansas City rail yards soon required services beyond what railroad employees or the shippers accompanying the stock could provide. The volume of cattle required a middleman, a

commission agent, to whom an owner consigned his stock and who guaranteed they received the proper care and

arrived in Chicago fit for the auction block. There was al so a need fo r coordinated management of the scattered

railroad stock pens. In I 87 I. cattle dealers formed the Kansas City Stockyards Company,55 converted a 15-acre56

parcel on the Kansas side of the West Bottoms into a unified stockyards operation. and erected a livestock exchange

office bui ldi ng where business could be efficiently transacted.5'

Initial!) the stockyards served onl} as a way station \\here stockmcn unloaded cattle shipped from Kansas to water.

feed. and rest before the final leg of the journey to Chicago ·s slaughterhouses. At this rime the "alue of this trade

\\as $3 million per :ear in Kansas City alone. It was not long before bu:cr!:> and sellers recognized the ad\antages of Kansas City as a destination market. The city·s stock) ards were the close!>t point to the south\\estem ranges - a

Ehrlich, 43. Schirmer, ~.+:and :vtontgomer), I 02-0.+. H1sto1:\' <?/Jackson County, 535. This was the forerunner or the Kansas City Union Stockyards. Di ffcrenl sources vary the number of acres as between 13 and 15.

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convenient place where eastern buyers looked over the stock and met with western ranchers.58 As early as l 878. the West Bottoms' stockyards extended into Missouri to a ··goose neck'' hemmed in by the Kaw River and the bluffs to

the east. Two years later ten rai l lines deli vered stock to the West Bottoms and nearly a million animals passed

through on their way to Chicago. Traders in horses, hogs and mules soon joined the cattle dealers. The enormous volume of livestock business transacted prompted the founding of the Livestock Exchange in 1886 to regulate the

dealings of stockmen, suppliers. railroad representatives, commission agents. buyers, and bankers.59

It was not long before meatpacking plants located near the stockyards and the city became a terminus for the

sh ipment of cattle. 60 The advent of meat processing coincided with the beginning of a .. stocker-feeder .. livestock market in the city. At this time many of the large cattle ranches in the Southwest began conversion into more

diversified farming and livestock operations. At the same time, new and smaller livestock operations appeared in

the areas to the west and northwest of Kansas City. These smaller stock ranches shipped enough cattle to Kansas

City to establish it as the nation's second-largest livestock marketplace and the largest in sale of .. stocker-feeders'·-animals purchased for fattening and later slaughter. Since stockmen used feed bought from local merchants to fatten

the cattle. and then sold it to West Bottom meat packers, the livestock trade made·· ... a tidy circle of profit for the local economy.'"61

By 1890, eight meatpacking plants employing 6,200 men and a growing number of meat inspection and processing

companies located in the West Bottoms. The demand created by the city's growing meatpacking businesses

contributed to the increase in the number of livestock aniving in Kansas City from 167 .000 head for all of 187 l to 100,000 head a day in 1908.61

MEAT PROCESSING AND ASSOCIATED I NDUSTRIES

Immediately after the Civi l War. meat packers went to western cattle yards located along rai l lines. The

establishment of rail yard pens fo r cattle in the West Bottoms changed the practice and initiated the City's ro le as a

meat-processing center. In 1868 the firm of J. W. L. Slavens, and Edward W. Pattison built the city's first beef packing house. slaughtering and packing around 4200 head of cattle their first season. That same year Thomas J.

,. Schirmer. 45.

•s Ibid .. 44. "' Ibid .. 44-46. Ml Ibid. 1, 1 Ibid.

'" Ibid., 46 .

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Bigger. an Irish immigrant, estab lished a hog-packing p lant exporting to Irish and Eng li sh markets. By 1870 five

small packinghouses operated in Kansas City.63

Attracted by the potential savings in shipping costs that Kansas City's western location o ffered, the Armour

brothers, established Chicago meat packers, established an operation with John Plank inton in the West Bottoms in

1871. The first year in o peration. the company butchered 13,000 cattle and 15.000 hogs. Eight years later. the

Plankinton and Armour p lant covered five acres.6-1 Swift and Company's 1887 plant encompassed 13 acres near the

stockyards while the Cudahy operation took over a 14-acre site in 1899. Completing what would become the .. big

fou r .. of twentieth centu1y meat processing companies in Kansas City was the Wilson and Company·s takeover of a

local plant in 19 15.65

The Armour Company's insta llation of a refrigerated "arctic p lant'· and the Swift Company's refrigerated rai l car

allowed slaughterhouses to be o perated year-round rather than c losing in the summer months because of heat and

insects. Moreover, the new in ventions guaranteed delivery of fresh meat to markets hundreds and thousands of

miles from the packing plant.66 Access to tender, feed-lot cuts of specially bred beef stock further stimulated the

market fo r beef and Kansas City ' s meat packers provided a steady. reliable source of tender beef. The packing

plants generated millions of dollars and established Kansas City as the nation ·s second largest meat processor.67

The success of the meatpack ing industry depended on the demand fo r processed meat by a growing urban

popu lation. Retail sa le of fresh beef occurred on ly in or near cities that had slaughterhouses: most cities did not

have enough facilities to meet local demand. Most fami lies. whether urban or rural. depended on dried. cu red or

canned meat. The packing demand for hogs alone led commission men to create a siLable hog market in Kansas and

western Missouri. Soon sheep arrived at the slaughterhouses as a matter of course."8

The livestock and meatpacking businesses geared up to feed both troops and civilians during W.W.! and again in

W.W.11. But their production steadi ly declined between those conflicts and, after 1947. the decline became more

rapid. With a regional net"vork of paved county roads, financed in part by government programs during the Great

Depression. livestock producers found a wider choice o r markets for their animals. With the increased use or truck

transport after 1920. farmers fo und it easier and cheaper to sh ip stock directly to nearby regional markets o r loca l

sale barns. The Kansas Cit) Stock)ards attempted to counter the trend b) building a truck tern1inal. but it ""a:; neH!r

61 His!Ory of.Jack.son County. 536. \/1ontgomery. 111. In 1892 it reorganized as Armour and Company. Schirmer. 47. Ibid .. and Momgomel). l 11. Sch irmer. 47. Chicago was first. lfisto1J' of.Jackson County, 536.

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fu lly adequate to serve an area designed fo r rail shipments. And, stockmen preferred the more direct auction system

rather than the more expensive, middleman consignment system used at the stockyards.69

The smal I sale barns that sprang up throughout the region attracted meat packers. Established companies, with

antiquated fac ilities in larger cities like Kansas City, elected to bu ild sma ll, automated specialty plants near sale

barns rather than retoo l their large packinghouses. For example, the Swift Company c losed 259 plants between

1956 and 1966 and opened 260 new ones out in the countryside. By the early 1970s, only a few small meat

processors remained in Kansas City. The stockyards handled so few anima ls that needed renovation was not

practical. Forty years after the stockyards received 2 million head annually in the 1920s, the number fell below

800,000 and, with the continued decline in numbers, the yards closed in the I 980s.70

The only rema ining physical evidence of the livestock industry in the West Bottoms today is the Livestock

Exchange Building erected in 1910 at 1600 Genessee.71 Related structures, concentrated along Genessee include

the Drover·s Te legram Company at 1503-05 Genessee which publi shed a newspaper for stockmen; the Stockyards

Hotel at 16 1 1 Genessee and the Shipley Building, a saddlers and merchandi se shop at 1627-3 1 Genessee.

GRAIN INDUSTRY

Kansas C ity owed its growth as a center for brokering and process ing gra in to Gennan Mennonites and Catholics

who migrated to Kansas and ebraska in 1873, and brought to the Pla ins a variety of wheat ca lled .. Turkey Red"'

from their settlements on the Volga River. Turkey Red is a winter wheat that is planted in the fall and harvested in

early summe r. Because it was wi nter hardy, it grew in Kansas in the fa ll , winter, spring and early summer mo nths.

Prior to this time. the fa1ms in the region produced sporadic surpluses for export.

During the initial settlement period in western \1issouri, settlers imported flour from mills in eastern Missouri and

western Illinois, a practice that continued until after the Civil War. These early communities soon became self

sustaining. but the demand created in the late 1840s and earl} 1850s b: overland emigrants. the military trade

through LJ.S. Ann) ·s quartermaster·s office at Fort Leaven"orth and the commercial trade in the South\\ est soon

created a demand that exceeded local production. 8)' the time Kansas made the transition from territorial status to

statehood its farmers produced large amounts of grain. Hov.ever. nevv settlers and \\CSh\ard immigrates claimed

any surplus. 8) 1870 regional production began to exceed local demand and railroads delivered small amounts of

grain to eastern markets. The followi ng year. the amount of surplus grain produced prompted investors to erect a

lbid .. 222. Ibid .. 222-223. The 1910 Live Stock Exchange Building was listed in the National Register of Historic Places March 5. 1984.

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grain elevator with a capacity of I 00,000 bushels. By the close of 1872, the grain business in Kansas City required two more elevators. 72

After the introduction of Turkey Red wheat in the late 1870s, regional grain production escalated. By 1880, seven

grain elevators in Kansas City, Missouri stored l.5 million bushels for local mills. By 1891 , 14 grain elevators with a storage capacity of 3.8 million bushels handled the million bushels of grain rhat often passed in and out of

the city in a single day. By 1900 the number of elevators was nearly 30.73 The amount of grain shipped through

Kansas City continued to grow. By the 1920s, a period when the stockyards and packing plants began to decline.

the advent of motorized farm equipment opened the Southwest to winter-wheat production. Most of the increased yield from this region fo und its way to Kansas City, further boosting local trad ing.7~ Grain not milled locally til led

river barges or freight cars bound for other cities and coasta l ports.75

The volume of available wheat spawned a sizable milling industry. Grain milling profited from an economy of

scale that did not efficiently occur in s~nall rural centers. By 1919 the output of Kansas City -s mi tiers collectively

ranked second in the nation. an impress ive 2.5 million barrels a year. 76

The abundance of flour led to the establishment of large commercial bakeries. Cracker fi rms in Kansas City

emp loyed thousands of workers. Large commercial bakeries located in both the West Bottoms and the Crossroads

area during the late nineteenth and early tvventieth century. The locally owned Loose-Wiles Biscuit Company's

aggressive marketing and sa les programs made its chief product, Sunshine Biscuits, a household word throughout I 77 t 1e country.

WHOLESALE AND W AREllOUSING I NDIJSTRIES

Kansas City-s geographic location in the United States and its position as a rai l hub with lines leading in every direction also stimulated wholesale goods and warehousing industries. Kansas City' warehouse business dates from

the time that French fu r trader. Francois Chouteau. erected a storehouse on the south bank of the Missouri River.

The city's first commercia l warehouses served as storage places for goods received by local retai l businesses unti l they could be transferred to their stores. as holding and collection sites for goods recently received or destined for

other locations. and as storage areas near factories for recently manufactured goods. Throughout the city's

History of.Jackson Co1111~1. 48. Ibid. Ibid. 23-t . Montgomcf), I I 0 and Schirmer. 23-t. Sch irmer, 48. Ibid.

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Rai lroad Related Historic Commercial and Industrial Resources in Kansas City, Missouri Jackson County, Missouri

commercial development, warehouse faci lities appeared in every railroad freight district in the city's commerc ial

and industrial areas.

Farm Implement Industry Among the earliest and the strongest of the wholesale businesses in Kansas City were companies dealing in the sale

and warehousing of farm implements. The demand for implements in Kansas City rose dramatically after the state of Kansas opened for farming and cattle raising. By 1878 Kansas City agricultural implement distribution

companies conducted more business than in any other city in the United States, handling approximately $5 million

do llars of goods. Contributing to the phenomenal growth of this business was the geograph ical position of the city at the center of the nation, its location in one of the country's richest agricultural areas and the rapidly improving

transportation accommodations. Shortly after the John Deere Plow Company statted a warehouse in the West

Bottoms in the early 1880s, other national firms followed and Kansas City became known as a major implement

center with six other firms building warehouses here and numerous others mainta ining some sort of sales force. By 1887, every manufacturer of agricultural implements and machinery in the United States had representatives in

Kansas City and the city' s implement firms sold 75.000 box carloads of farm equipment a year. Annua l sa les rose

to $35 mi Ilion in 191 4. Indications of the city's prominence in the field were the 1887 1 ational Agricultural

Exposition. and the 1901 lt 11 Annual Convention of Western Implement and Vehicle Dealers Association, both held in the city.78

Wholesale "Jobber" Industry During the late nineteenth century, Kansas City ·jobbers .. - middlemen who purchased manufactured goods from

factories throughout the country and sold them (with a mark-up in cost) to retailers, dealt in a wide assortment of

goods. In 1900 the nearly 500 local jobbing houses in Kansas City played a dominant role in the national wholesale

industry, distributing finished articles from the manufacturing centers of the world to the developing American West and Southwest. The area covered by these houses equaled almost half of the land area of the Un ited States and

the combined annual business of these companies was nearly $200 million. Among the products .. jobbed .. in the

city were dry goods and hardwa re: wholesale groceries and liquor: furniture, lum ber. and moldings: paint and varnishes: agricu ltural implements and machinery, seeds: pharmaceuticals: paper; and jewelry. 79 By the first

decades of the twentieth century. a ne~ variation on the business of distribution appeared. Buildings that housed

regional sales offices. sho•Moom:\ and distribution '"arehouses for national chains such as the Studebaker

Ibid .. 37. Cit) Planning and Development Department, Historic Preservation \1anagement Division of Kansas Cit;... vtissouri'

Thomason and Associates Preservation Planners; and Three Gables Preservation '"Historic Resources Survey Plan of Kansas City'' (Kansas City: Landmarks Commission of Kansas Cit)'. Missouri. 1992). 37.

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United Stares Department of the Interior National Park Service

NATIONAL REG IST ER OF HISTORIC PLACES CONT INUATION SH EET

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Corporation, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Distributing Corporation, and the Columbia Graphaphone and Dictaphone

Company appeared.80

Warehouse lndustry

In addition to warehouses uti lized by distributors and wholesale jobbers near rai lroad fre ighting services, storage build ings served local retai l bus inesses such as the J. W. Jenkins and Sons Music Company, Robert Keith Furn iture

and Carpet Company, John Taylor Dry Goods Company, and Bunting Hardware and Machi nery Company. During the late nineteenth century. economic boom years for railroad freight shipping, the warehousing business grew into

a sizable area of commerce. After W.W. I. the city's warehousing and wholesale businesses encountered a

shrinking trade area as retailers found suppliers closer to home than Kansas City. Secondary supply centers

developed first in mid-sized cities like Denver, Omaha and Wichita and, later. in towns like Salina, Kansas and Hastings, ebraska relied on railroad freighting, but also began to embrace the regional use of truck transport

where trucking companies picked up or delivered goods to railroad freight areas. Further impacting the city's

wholesale and warehouse market was the arrival of the manufacturer's representatives who traveled by car to the

retailer's shop to take orders. The development of the franchise chain store, in turn. did away with the sales rep. The effects of this evolution in marketing can be seen in the loss of 129 wholesale businesses in Jackson County

between 1948 and 1954.81

MANUFACTURERS

Kansas City's role as a rail center assured the establishment of a sizab le manufacturing industry in the city. As each

industrial enclave became established near freight lines. manufactures of a wide array of products erected plants

and warehouses. Products manufactured and distributed by Kansas City industries included foods and condiments: chemicals and paints: metal fillings. valves; pumps. tanks. and well machinery: gas. electric. diesel and kerosene

engines: starch. furnitu re. and engineering supplies: and refrigeration units. fire-protection equipment, wind mills

and other machinery.8~ The advent of the internal combustion machine spawned the production of cars and trucks. Early automoti\e entrepreneurs took advantage of the cit) ·s location as a major shipper and established automobile

assembly plants in the Blue River Valley and norch of the Missouri River

The manufacturing and fabrication of metals grew inco an imponanc part of the cit) ·s industrial base as a result of

the city's central location in the national railroad freight system. The manufacturing of primal) metals and

fabricated metal products gained a foothold in Kansas City around 1900. and significant gro\\th occurred in the

80

81 Betz. Compilation of information from surve) fonns Schirmer. 223-224. Betz; and Piland and Uguccioni. Listing compiled from survey forms.

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United States Department of the Interior . ational Park Service

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1920s and again after 1940. A sizable portion of the metals industry in the West Bottoms and the Blue Valley

industrial areas involved the fabrication of agricultural implements. The manufacturing of steel in Kansas City grew out of expansion of the old Kansas City Bolt and Nut Company in the Blue Valley industrial area fo l lowing W. W .I.

Reorganized as the Sheffie ld Steel Corporation in 1925,83 the company operated oil and gas-tired open-hearth furnaces for steel production and an electric furnace for processing scrap metal. By 1953 the firm had an annual

capacity of 480,000 tons.8~

A number of firms dealing in fabricated metal products emerged in the 1920s in response to the need for material

and equipment of new industrial and commercial finns in towns in the Kansas City region. Finns such as Butler

Manufacturing in the Blue Valley industrial area produced a wide range of welded storage and shipping containers, fabricated grain bins, metal plate, and even steel buildings. Smaller firms. fabricating brass castings, light fixtures,

wire cable, steel drums, tin cans and a wide range of industrial supplies, located near rail lines in the Old Town.

West Bottoms, Crossroads area and Blue River Valley industrial areas.85

The advent of truck transport and better county roads loosened the railroad's control over the local economy. By

the 1920s, towns and villages in rural areas matured and developed industrial and trade centers independent of

Kansas City. Manufacturing continued to decline during the depression of the 1930s. Even the upturn in

manufacturing during World War II presented obstacles to continued growth of manufacturing within the city. Turning out war material during World War II raised the capacities of manufacturers in the surrounding towns of

the region at a time older manufacturing centers in cities produced less. 86 Industrial mobilization for the war

actually began shortly after Hitler invaded Poland in 1939 and reached maximum capacity by 1943.

The government acted primarily as a purchaser rather than a manufacturer and most of the defense funds a llocated

to Jackson County went to existing manufactu ring facil ities. Electronics and metal fabricators received the biggest

boost from war contracts. Wilcox Electric produced communication and navigation equipment. Vendo and Aireon provided electronics apparatus. The Darby Corporation and Kansas City Structural Steel manufactured landing craft

for the C.S. a"}· Butler :vlanufacturing. Colombian Steel Tank. Benson :vlanufacturing and other metal fabricators

produced e\ erything from aircraft refuelers to aircra ft parts.8' Alcoa retrofitted a \acant plant in the Blue River

Valle} into an aluminum found!"} for fabricating cylinder heads in aircraft engines. The Ford plant s'"itched to

Further reorgan ization joined Sheffi eld and the Union Wire Rope Company within Armco Steel. Schirmer. 226. Ibid. Ibid., 227. Ibid., 230.

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making military vehicle components while the Chevrolet and Fisher Body automotive plants facilities produced

a11ille1y ammunition. Local garment makers like H. D. Lee and Nelly Don made uniforms.88

When peace returned in 1945, local plants stood ready to manufacture items that were scarce during the war. At the

same time the hungry countries of poshvar Europe required the agricu ltural surplus of America's heartland. Kansas City's businesses made an easy transition to peacetime production, thanks in part to the new infusion of capital,

managerial experience and technical ability provided by military contracts.89

SPECIALIZED B USINESSES

Each industrial freighting district in Kansas City included a considerable number of smal l specialized commercial

businesses such as laundries, sign companies, sheet metal shops, plumbing companies. and building contractors. For example, north of the Un ion Station in the Crossroads area is a unique cluster of buildings constructed behveen

1902 and 1958 that housed technical, manufacturing and distributing divisions of major studios. such as Warner Brothers. Fox, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, and Paramount studios.90

In addition. there are a number of businesses that provide needed specialty services in commercial and industrial

areas such as restaurants, saloons, hotels, gas stations. machine and auto repair shops and banks. The earliest of

these, located in the area because of its proximity to supplies shipped in on the railroads. the latter by virtue of

zoning regulations and proximity to suppliers or customers. Most owe their choice of location to a combination of a II of these factors.

COMMERCIAL AND INDUSTRIAL ARCHITECTuRE IN KANSAS CITY'S RAILROAD

FREIGHT DISTRICTS, 1869-1970

COMMERCIAL AND IND USTRIAL B UILDI NGS AND STRUCTURES, 1865-1899

Architectural Styles

Kansas Cit) ·s first busines::. house::. on the \llissouri River le\ee \\ere simple one- or t\'>O-stor: buildings

constructed in wood_ brick or stone. With the completion of the Hannibal Bridge (the first across the Missouri River) in 1869. the cit)· s business houses moved inland to the tO\\ n square_ forming a mix tu re of frame and brick

89

•)()

Ibid .. 231 Ibid. Pi land and Uguccioni. 1-1.

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buildings, se ldom more than three stories high, situated on a grid pattern. Some of these early commercial buildings

featured formalized architectural design features. Their elaborate cornices, decorative lintels. stone foundations and

assorted sty listic details emphasized the more permanent nature of a city that had settled into a period of establi shed

economic growth and stability.91

The post-Civil War period saw a rapid rise of urban areas in both size and influence. Equally important was the

radica l transformation in their visual character brought on by growth. Sharp differences emerged between East and

West and town and city. Commercial areas became specialized according to administrative. retail, wholesale, and

industrial use. 1 ew building types and reinterpretations of familiar building types to meet these specialized functions evolved such as the commercial block, office building, city hall and courthouse. department store, factory

and warehouse loft and wholesale storage depot.92

Commercial bui ldings erected in the United States during the late nineteenth century to serve special functions

fo llowed many general forms and patterns. They fa ll into two distinct design categories, those that reflect popular

academ ic or ··high style" designs and those that feature simple utilitarian sty les. Many of the commercial and

industrial buildings can also be identified by the arrangement of their fa9ade. One- and two-story commercial retail

and specialty service buildings in urban areas usually featured a separate storefront and upper fa9ade while the commercial and industrial buildings that were two stories or more in height can be classified according to the

arrangement of their upper facades. Al l of these buildings may be classi tied first by form and. additionally, by

stylistic features or they may be identified by sty le alone.

Initial growth and prosperity in Kansas City brought a variety of robust popular late nineteenth centuty styles for

commercial and industrial buildings -- Italianate. Renaissance Revival. Second Em pire. and Romanesque Revival. Less ··important .. buildings erected during the late nineteenth centu1y reflected faint echoes of their high-style

counterparts in the use of restrained. simple ornament and character defining elements

The Hiswric Resources Suney Plan of Kansas City identified and classified a number of 'vernacular commercial and industrial building t)pes. T\.\O major classifications that denote a building·s overall plan and fonn are the

··False Front Victorian Functional .. and ··Urban Commercial Building Forms. 1870- 1940." The latter building l) pe

includes the follO\\ ing sub-t)pes: the One-Part Commercial Bloch.. the f\\O-Part Commercial Bloch.. Stacked

.,, Ehr I ich. 21 . Rifkind. 193.

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Vertical Block, Two-Part Vertical Block, Three-Part Vertical Block and Temple Front designs.9-' Many examples of

these designs can be found in railroad freight areas in the city. In pa11icular. adaptations of the Two-Part

Commercial Block, the Two-Part Vertical Block and Three- Part Vertical Block are found in railroad freight areas.

Extant examples include those executed in popular architectural styles of the day as well as those that feature more restrained stylistic touches.

The Two-Part Commercial Block building is found throughout Kansas City's older neighborhoods. These

buildings are two-to-four stories in height and feature a definite horizontal division that reflects the building·s use.

The first story is comprised of one or more storefronts with living or office quarters above. Commercial and industrial buildings in railroad freight areas that utilize this design include offices of commiss ion agents, sma ll

wholesale sales operations, specialty stores, and post office buildings.9.i

The Two-Part Vertical Block is most commonly associated with office buildings, stores, hotels and public and institutional buildings. These buildings are at least four stories high and feature a facade that has two major

horizontal zones that are different yet carefully related to one another. The lower zone rises one or two stories and

serves as a visual base for the upper zone. The upper zone features prominent architectural detailing and is h·eated

as a unified whole. Many of the larger commercial buildings erected by national companies utilized thi s design for their district offices and warehouses.95

The Th ree-Part Ve11ical Block is identical to the Two-Part Vertical Block except that it has a distinct upper zone of

generally one to three stories. More commonly found in ta ll buildings erected in the 1920s. the tripartite design is also found in commercial buildings with four or more stories erected in the late nineteenth century. These designs

commonly feature a lower zone. a transitional zone of one or more stories. and an upper ··attic·· zone of one story.

The level of architectural embellishment is uniform throughout the fa~ade.96

Some types of academic or ··high style .. architectural designs that reflect a definite sty le distinguished by special

characteristics of structure and ornament are frequently round in railroad freight areas. These buildings reflect

sty les that enjoyed wide public suppo1t and are easily defined by their form. spatial re lationships and embellishments. Those commonly found in nineteenth century railroad freight area::. include Italianate. Romanesque Re\ i1,.aL and Renaissance Re\ i\al styles.

City Planning and Development Department. 160-168. Commercial vernacular propert) t} pes in this documenr are based on . lmerican i ·ernucular De~ign. 18-0-19-10 by Jan Jennings and Herbert Gottrried and the Buildings of Jlain Street b) Richard Longstreth. 91 Ibid., 163. t)c; Ibid .. 165. ')() Ibid .. l 66.

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Railroad Related Historic Commercial and Industrial Resources in Kansas City. Missouri Jackson County. Missouri

Italianate style commercial buildings began to appear in commercial and industrial areas after I 855. The most

elaborate served as retail stores featuring a street leve l storefront with expanses of plate glass framed by columns. pi !asters or decorated piers. Most had cast iron columns and storefront elements that were mass produced and

cheaper than carved stone. Upper-story windows had round or segmental arches often with projecting keystones and rich ly profiled moldings. A projecting cornice with modil lions or brackets often crowned the flat roofline at the

eaves.n Ita lianate style buildings located in commercial and industrial fre ight areas were more restrained versions.

More often than not, they reflected Italianate stylistic influences through the adaptation of several features. in

particular. ta ll. narrow arched or pedimented window openings: decorative cornice lines; and large brackets. The building at 1228-50 Union in the West Bottoms erected in 1890 is one of the few remaining buildings in the city's

commercial/ industrial areas exh ibiting these Italianate details.

By far the most popular and enduring nineteenth century design utilized in Kansas City fo r large commercial and

industrial bui ldings was the Romanesque Revival style. Usually executed in reel brick. the style remained popular

fo r commercial and manufacturing bui ldings throughout the 1890s and into the first decades of the twentieth

century. Monumental and state ly in appearance, the Romanesque style industrial building usually stood five to s ix stories.98 Defining elements of the style as executed in the commercial and industrial buildings in Kansas City's

industrial freight areas are: the use of coarse ashlar and brick to create a heavy. rugged building form; massive low

arches employed over windows and doors; cavernous entries; deep window reveals; and utilization of cast terra

cotta panels and column capitals.99 A typica l example of the Romanesque style's use is Askew Saddlery Company building in the Old Town industrial area.

Several popular styles do not appear in the designs of the buildings near freigh t yards in Kansas City. Architects and clients eschewed the Gothic Revival style, although a few examples exist where architects and builders did

incorporate some of the idiom ·s features such as pointed arch windows. While the elaborate Second Empire style

was the chosen treatment of the Union Depot (demolished) erected in the West Bottoms in 1878. commercial and

industrial buildings in freight areas did not utilize the style. The Renaissance Re\i\al st) le. popular in the design of hotels. corporate headquarters and in public buildings in Kansas Cit). \\as a rare st)·listic choice for the functional

manufacturing and \\arehousc buildings in the city's industrial centers. Certain characteristics of the Renaissance

Re\ i\ al ::.t) le can. hO\\e\ er. be found in the arched opening::.. detailed cornices and rusticated masonry laid with deep joints that gi\e the appearance of massiveness and strong horizontal lines to commercial buildings in industrial areas.

Ibid .. 169. Ibid .. 170.

)l) John C. Poppe liers: S. Allen Chambers. Jr.; and :-.Janey B. SchwarlL. Whal S~r!e Is /1 :I Guide To .-/merican

.-/rchi1ec111re (Washing/on D.C ,\ia1ional Trusl For His1oric Preserra1ion f>reserrnfion f>ress). 1983. 62, 65.

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All of the commercial-industrial buildings erected in the late nineteenth century displayed a wide variety of

traditional and innovative materials often used in combinations to create a striking effect. During this period, dark

red or dark-brown brick, limestone, and slate were favorite materials. Dressed brownstone and dark-toned granite, often hewn fo r a rustic treatment, had both visual and tactile appeal. The use of cast iron both structurally and for

decoration became popular during the 1870s and continued to be used throughout the remainder of the centu1y.

Zinc, ga lvanized iron and pressed tin also came into use during this period. The ever present concern for fire safety popularized the use of pressed brick, ceramic tile and, after the turn of the century, reinforced concrete. To en liven

building surfaces, architects and builders of this period favored the use of brick corbels as well as the use ofterra

cona cast in panels. moldings and columns.100

! ew tools. new materials and ne·w processes emerged during this period with staggering rapidity. The

industrialization of glass production led to the use of the large plate glass windows of the late Victorian period The

Civil War accelerated the development of metallurgical industries and the post war fabrication and use of iron and, then, steel as structural building components transformed construction technology. By the beginning of the

twentieth century the nation ·s increased capacity to supply structural steel in a range of shapes and form led to the

demise in the use of the less satisfactory wrought iron and cast iron. In particular, as steel succeeded iron in the

1880s and 1890s, the method of stee l framing called "skeleton construction" eliminated the use of timber and masonry materials as structural building elements. At the same time the manufacture of Po1tland cement, begun in

1870. gave impetus to the use of brick and stone masonry for the walls of large buildings. The advent of steel

skeleton buildings and the accompanying prospect of fireproof construction stimulated. in tum. new developments

in ceramic and clay products. 101

The voracious demand for new construction and the appearance of new technologies in the late nineteenth century

led to the creation of the building industry itself as a distinct fo rce in shaping the appearance of commercial and industrial buildings. Steam po,, er allowed the efficient qualT)ing and finishing of stone. Hydraulic cranes and

ele\ators permitted the accomplishment of extraordinary construction feats. Advances in metal fabrication led to

the mass production of high quality tools and machi nes. to2 The cumulative effect of the ill\entions developed

bet\,een 1865 and 1900 such as the ele' ator. electric transformer. airbrakc. generator. d) namo. cable. motor and

, ,u

101

168. 102

Ritkind. 194. James Mar:.ton Fitch, American Building The H1srur1t.:al Fcm:I.!;; !11a1 Shap1tJ Ir (:--JC\~ Y or". Schocken Boo":>. 1913 ).

Rifki nd. 271 and Fitch. 169.

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United States Depalilnent of the Interior 1 ational Park Service


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light bulb, complete ly transformed the character of the nation's buildings, re leasing them from centuries-old

limitations of size, density and re lationship. 10>

COMMERCIAL AND I NDUSTRIAL B UILDINGS AND STRUCTURES 1900-1970

Architectural Styles

During the first decades of the twentieth centwy. the country's urban centers experienced a rapid rise in population.

Kansas City's growth patterns reflected this trend. Between 1910 and 1933 the population of Kansas City increased by

150,000. a rate of growth mirroring that of other urban centers in the counrry. 1 ~ Rapid growth and the industrialization

of urban centers created profound social problems. As Americans turned their attention to addressing these issues. there

was a cultural shifl from the aesthetic abstractions of the Victorian period to the economic. social and physical realities

of the early twentieth century. Architects increasingly turned to more utilitarian styles. In Kansas City. the demand for

more housing and the expanding number of commercial structures created a noticeable shift to functional adaptations of

historic styles and more funct ional approaches to design.

The revival styles that began in the late nineteenth century and lasted into the 1920s. notable for their weightiness and

solidity were larger and more e laborate than earlier nineteenth centu1y styles. Kansas City's freight districts contain a

number of extant examples of this treatment. These buildings often housed corporate offices as well as a manufacturing

plant and/or storage facility. The architect's use of these styles in designing commercial and industrial buildings

typically consisted of the merging of vague historic motifs with utilitarian building forms . . evertheless, even in

heavily industrial streetscapes. class ically inspired architectural elements adorned many of the buildings erected

during the first two decades of the twentieth century. Such embellishments included the use of rusticated plinths,

pi lasters. columnar entrances, and classical cornice treatments.

At the same time that rev ival styles enjoyed popularity . the industrial designs that emerged from the Chicago

School became a major infl uence on Kansas City architecture. The use o f the st) le was part of an evolutiona!)

process in design. In the mid- I 880s railer buildings began ro appear and architects accented the different floors

using such t}pical treatments as banding ascending stories at intervals b} horizontal courses. changes in materials

and. sometimes. intricate Classical or Romanesque omament. ' 0~ By the 1890s. a ne'' treatment popularized b~ Chicago arch irects took a simpler form. These designs used restrained ornamentation and emphasized the grid-like

pattern created by the steel-skeleton construction by a balanced treatment of horizonta l spandrels and vertical piers.

The design frequen tly used a three-part window composed of a wide. fixed pane flanked by narrow double-sash

IO I !· itch. 176. Ehrl ich, 66. Rifkind. l 95.

NPS Fonn I 0-900-a 18-861

United States Department of the Interior 1 ational Park Service

NATIONAL REGISTER OF HISTORIC PLACES CONTIN ATION SH EET

Section E Page 29

OMB No 101.J-OOJS


windows as the principal element of pattern and ornamentation. Beginning in the early 1890s. buildings over five stories often incorporated these elements and the hierarchy created by Chicago arch itect, Louis Sullivan. Sullivan's

use of lower stories to create a heavy base and attic stories to establish an expressive and definitive crown, with the

intermediate stories serving as a shaft created by vertical piers, became the model for what became known as the Chicago School style. 106 Whether executed in the Romanesque style or with a Classical Rev iva l treatment, the fo rm

of these first Ch icago School style buildings remained the same. In Kansas City's industrial areas, pure fo rms of the Sul livanesque style are not found while a large number of vernacu lar adaptations erected in the Chicago School

sty le remain.

The patterns of development of Kansas City and types and styles of structures built after World War I and before the

Great Depression reflected both national trends and the unique circumstances of Kansas City itself. Most utilitarian,

industrial and non-retail commercial buildings had minimal architectural ornament -- patterned brickwork, sparse

terracotta ornamentation and, occasionally, Romanesque-inspired arched open ings. During the boom construction years of the 1920s buildings became taller in downtown areas. Because of the size and height, architects

experimented with period revival detailing such as the vertical ribs to suggest Gothic, a Tudor arched doorway at

the base of a tower or a Renaissance Revival fa<;:ade fo r a bank. Functional industrial and commercial bui ldings

rare ly reflected these treatments. 107

The simple cubic fo rms and flat surfaces of the Modern Movement's Art Deco and Moderne styles quickly found a

place in industria l areas. The simplicity of the styles, popular from 1925- 1940, proved to be quite adaptable to low,

simple buildings that housed the offices and showrooms (and even storage areas) of manufacturers' representatives and distributors as well as business offices of small films. These streamlined buildings had simple cubic forms and

flat surfaces with little or no ornamentation. The Moderne variation of these Modern Movement buildings featured

banded windows of metal and glass. The linear Art Deco style had a pronounced verticality and featured geometric

ornamentation that utilized faceted surfaces. zigzags, and chevron panerns. Simple restrained versions of these modern building styles remain throughout the cit; ·s industrial areas. 108

8) the 1930s. much of the building activit} in rhe area greatl) diminished. The maJonr: of commercial and industrial buildings erected during the 1930s and 19-Ws feature simple masonl} construction. often a light colored

bric!-. \\ ith functional st} ling incorporating minimal ornamentation. A fc\, incorporate the decorari\e and

streamlined Art Deco and Moderne architectural styling that evoke~ the era. In Kansas City the use of high st) le Art Deco and Moderne designs became accepted. particularly for government and office buildings and commercial

10·

108

Ibid., 195-96 and Poppelicr::., 72-75 . Rifl<ind. 218. Poppcl icrs, 88 93 and Ehrlich. 113.

NPS Form 10-900-a (8-86)

United States Depa11ment of the Interior 1 ational Park Service


Section E Page 30

OMB No 102-1-0018


retail buildings. By the end of the decade, the stark International Style that came out of Europe made Art Deco

seem ornate. But. before the style took hold, the prospect of war in Europe and consequent entry of the United

States into the conflict stimulated a return to known designs. America ·s architectural tastes aga in embraced the revival styles, particularly the Colonial and Classical Revival style idioms.109 The colorful geometry of Art Deco

and Moderne styling gave way in the 1930s to simpler, more restrained Modern Movement style designs that dominated post-World War II commercial and industrial buildings found near railroad freight areas.

During the 1930s the first extensive introduction of the Modern Movement International stylistic influences' 10 into

the design of wholesale distribution. warehouse and manufacturing buildings in railroad freight areas in the metropolitan Kansas City area occurred in the buildings along film row near West I 7'h Streer at the north side of the

Crossroads area and with the development of the Fairfax (Kansas) Industrial District a subsidiary of the Union Pac ific Railroad. Established by the railroad in the 1920s, the indusrrial area was northwest of downtown Kansas

City, Missouri on the Kansas side of the confluence of the Kansas (Kaw) and Missouri Rivers. Located on river

bottom land along the Missouri River, the district emphasized railroad, airplane and truck freighting usage.

Industrial building executed in the style, or derivations thereof included: a square or rectangular footprint, a

simple cubic "extruded rectangle" form, windows running in horizontal rows. facade angles limited to 90

degrees. Effi ciency and processes" predicated the industri al design. The design of these buildings was based

on modern structura l principles and materials - brick, concrete. glass and stee l were the most commonly used

materials. The style rejected ornamentation, featured strips of windows and solid planes that helped create a horizontal feeling, avo ided artific ial symmetry but encouraged balance and regu larity. 111 Following the end of

World War I l. they reflected conservative variations of new commercial and institutional construction in Kansas

City that moved cautiously toward the modernism that was taking hold of urban centers nationwide. In the 1950s

in the Kansas City area. construction of Modem Movement sryle commercial buildings generally occun-ed outside the Central Business District in such areas as freight and industrial districts. or in small commercial areas adjacent

to new suburban de' elopment.11~ Construction :vlatcrials and Techniq ues

IJ') Rifkind. 217-218 and Ehrlich. 94-106. The term lnternatiunal Style as used came from the 1932 exhibition at the Museum of :v1odern Art. organized b}

Philip Johnson, and from the title of the exhibition catalog fo r that exh ibit. written by Johnson and I lenry Russell Hitchcock. It addressed bui lding from 1922 through 1932. Johnson named. codified, promoted and subtly re-defined the whole Modem Y1ovement as an aesthetic style. rather than a matter of political statements associated with the early development of architectural modernism beginning in 191-l. '

1 John Poppeliers. S. Allen Chambers. Jr, and J\ianc)' B. Schwart1... What Style ts It .' A Guide to A.meric:an Arc:h1tec:tur11. (Wash111gton D.C.: The Preservation Press. 1983), 92 111 Ehrlich, 121.

NPS Form I 0-900-;1 18-86)



Section E Page 3 I

OMB No 1 0~4-0018

Railroad Relared Historic Commercial and Industrial Resources in Kansas Ciry. Missouri Jackson Counry. Missouri

Although the palette of the turn-of-the-centu1y City Beautiful Movement brought white. light-gray marble,

limestone and buff masonry materials to the city's boulevards and commercia l corridors. the use of dark brick and stone continued in industrial fre ighting areas. Architects used spec ial ty metals such as bronze, steel alloys, copper

and brass for ornament. Following World War I the use of paste l-co lored terra-cotta and unglazed bricks with soft

yellow and russet tones created a rich tapestry like effect in masonry wa lls. By the 1930s poured concrete construction and cast-concrete ornament came into common usage. Materials associated with the Art Deco sty le

included black glass and marble, neon tubes, and bronze and terra cotta in decorative grilles and panels. The Moderne style employed large expanses of glass, glass brick, chrome and stainless steel. 11 ~

The importance of the technological discoveries and advent of their commonplace usage profoundly affected the buildings of the twentieth century. During the first decades of the new centu ry. the handicraft of the nineteenth

century building trades gave way to a flood of industrial mass production. 114

During the first decade of the century, reinforced concrete came into usage. particularly in commercial and industri al architecture. Its early use in Kansas City in the first decade of the twentieth century is due to two local

architects who pioneered the use of reinforced concrete - John McKecknie and James Oli ver Hogg. Both of their

fi rms designed numerous industrial and commercial buildings in the city. 115

The use of we lding, rigid-frame trusses and the cantilever accelerated the use of steel construction during the 1920s and the Depression years. Continuous floor slabs supported by rein fo rced concrete mushroom columns permitted

heavy-load-bearing capac ity in warehouse structures. The greater strength created by the use of steel welding and

synthetic ad hesives created lighter construction. Electric welding tools. cutting tools utilizing cemented tungsten carbide and tantalum carbide, and compressed-air tools. all provided the ability to utilize new building materials.

These innovations led to streamlined standardized construction processes including mass production and

prefabrication. 110

The application of electric pO\\er to industrial production profound I} changed on the appearance of industrial

districts and the design of industrial buildings. The use of high-voltage electrical-cable transmission began in the

1890s and. b} 1920. almost one-third of the power in industrial area~ \\as electric. Transmission lines ran to industrial areas \\here integrated manufacturing. \\are house. uti I ity bu i Id i ngs and transportation S} stems stood.

With the development in 1913 of the overhead trolle} to mo\e materials mechanicall). assembl}-line production

111 Ritkind. 2 18. II I Fitch. 229. 11< Ehr I ich, 61 . I I<> Rifkind. 294.

NPS Fonn 10-900-a (8-86)


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OMB No 1 01~-001&


became fi rmly estab lished. Industrial buildings and sites expanded latera lly instead of vertical ly. Owners of light

manufacturing businesses erected structures that seldom exceeded one or two stories and located them in formal

campus-I ike arrangements. Large, steel-frame storage and processing bu ild ings became a new component in industrial areas. New scientific analysis of production flow and working conditions also affected factory design as

the manufacturing process became highly adapted for production of specific products, an approach that created new spatial arrangements.11 7

T HE EVOLUTION OF THE PRACTICE OF ARCHITECTURE I K.\.NSAS C ITY

During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries professionalism in the practice of architecture became

firmly established in Kansas City. Prosperous times dramatically changed the city's appearance and increased

architectural sophistication on the part of craftsman and client All combined "to make over what had been for all practical purposes a medium sized western city just barely removed from its frontier origins.""118

Since Missouri did not regulate architectural practice until 194 l, many of the individuals involved in the construction of bui ldings and structures prior to that time, pa1ticularly in the nineteenth century, bestowed upon themselves the title of

'"architect.'" In l 870, nine individuals appeared in the classified section of the city directo1y as architects. This number

decreased to two in 1875 due to the depressed economy resulting from the Panic of l 873. The construction boom of

the 1880s changed these numbers dramatically. The boom in Kansas City attracted major finns from Chicago, New

York and Boston to open tempora1y offices in the city. In 1880. 15 firms appeared in the city directory, of these four were partnerships and the number of individually listed architects numbered 19. The number of architects tripled

between 1884 and 1888, a peak that was not reached again until the bu ilding boom of I 904- 1906. The 1880 city

directory listed 64 architectural firms including I l partnerships. In l 9 l 5 the city directory listed 81 firms. Eighteen finns were partnerships. Of the I 02 architects practicing in the city. 38 were in dual or trio partnerships. These

"architects" ranged in skills and expertise from the academically or professionally trained to carpenter-builders \\ho

simply proclaimed themselves architects. evertheless. the buildings and structures erected in the period reflect the presence of competent and e\ en innovati\ e architectural practices. ' '1

fhis e\olution reflected regional trends. During the late nineteenth and earl) l\\entieth centut") professionalism in

the practice of architecture became firmly es ta bl ished in the :vtid\\.CSL A ftcr the tum of the cencu!J. graduates from two architecture schools in Kansas joined the architects trained outside the area" ho practiced in Kansas Cit).

, . Ibid., 296. Ehrlich, ..i I.

11'1 George Ehrlich. ""Partnership Practice and the Profess1onali1.at1on ot' Architecture in Kansas City, Missouri," Jlissoun Historical Rl!viell' LXXIV, 4 (July 1980). 458--l80.

:-JPS Fann 10-900-a {8-86)


NAT IONAL REGISTER OF HISTORIC PLACES CONTINUATION SHEET

Section E Page 33

OMB Nu 102~-00JS


Missouri. The College or Engineering at Kansas State Uni versity in Manhattan fi rst offered a formal cun-icul um for

study of archi tecture in 1903. The architectural program at the Uni vers ity of Kansas in Lawrence began ten years

later under the direction of Goldwin Goldsmith, a graduate of Cornell Uni versity and fo rmer secretary to Stanford White, of the 1 ew York-based firm of McKim, Mead & White. The two schools offered programs in both

architecture and architectural engineering. The acceptance of modernism in the region was due, in part, to attitudes fostered at the University of Kansas where the architecture program was among the first in the country to embrace

the new aesthetic tenets evolving in Europe in the 1920s. Kansas City architect, Clarence Kivett. a 1928 graduate,

was a leader in introducing modernist architectura l sensibi lities to the Midwest. In addition to the impact of

graduates of these schools, the architectural profession in the Kansas City area in the first half of the twentieth century continued to be en riched by architects who trained at other institutions.120

During the same period, one result of industrial expansion was an initial spl it between the disciplines of architecture and engineering. As metal construction came into general use for bridges. the roofs of large structures, and,

ultimately stee l frame bu ildings during the nineteenth century, engineers became more involved in the des ign of

large industrial and commercial projects. At the same time architects, distracted by efforts to resusc itate historic

styles, as a rule ignored the poss ibilities of new technology and materials. 121 During the first decades of the twentieth centu1y the two discipli nes began to reconcile as style and function blended.

The arch itecture that evolved as the industrial areas near fre ight ra il lines in Kansas City expanded reflects the work

of many architects hired by promi nent bus inesses to des ign their bui ldings. Architects and fi rms generally known for the quality of their commercial designs and/or for use of new technologies whose work is reflected in the extant

buildings in the freight areas are listed in Figure 6.

CONCLGSIO~

The forces or location and available rail services detennined the industrial and commercial future of Kansas Cit).

The unique circumstances of demand for commercial and industrial buildings and structures. a\ ailable architectural and engineering expertise and client preferences for the popular St) les of the da) determined ho\\ Kansas Cit)

looked and ho'' it differed in appearance from district to district within the cit). From these same parameters.

certain propcrt) t) pes C\ oh ed. The functional plan dictated b) the needs of the O\\ ner created distinct propert)

types. The property t) pes and their arrangement in freighting areas along "' ith the architectural St) les applied to

David 11. Sachs & George Ehrlich, Gutdi! IV l:\.ansa~ Ard1111!i:l11r11 ( Lawn:!n<.:c. l;nivcrsit) of Kansas Press. 1996). 21-22. 1~1 Fitch. 187-88.

NPS Form I 0-900-a 18-861


NATIONAL REGIST ER O F HISTORIC PLACES COl\TINUATION SHEET

Section E Page 34

OMB No 1 02~ -0018

Railroad Relaced Historic Commercial and lnduscrial Resources in Kansas City, Missouri Jackson Coun1y. Missouri

their plans, in turn, created a unique sense of place. These "places" today comm unicate the era of the railroad

commercial and industrial freight district in Kansas City.

NPS Fonn 10-900-a (8-86)


NATIONAL REGISTER OF HISTORIC PLACES CONTINUATION SH EET

Sec1ion E Page 35

Figure l. Industrial Areas in Kansas City, Missouri . :1 ~

; • .l. :1 . •.

c '___._. 0 ..

I

I - - --1

'

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OM l3 No. 1024-0018


N

_l_

NPS Fonn 10-900-~ (8-86)



Section F Page I

F: Associated Property Types

OMB No. 1 02~-001 8


Associated Property Types for Railroad Related Commercial and Industrial Resources found in Kansas

City are based on associative qualities and physical characteristics relating to the original use or function

of the resources.

I. NAME OF PROPERTY TYPE: I NDUSTRIAL FACILITIES AND COMMERCIAL DISTRIBUTION

BUILDINGS

II. General Description This property type represents the industrial fabricating and commercial wholesale distribution

businesses that comprise the core of commercial and industrial resources found in railroad freight

areas in Kansas C ity, Missouri. Although examples of this property type can be found in small

scale buildings, the most common physical characteristics of the buildings and structures erected

in the late nineteenth and early to mid-twentieth century is their large size and massing. They are

usually fo ur to e ight stories. Some of these buildings may not be individually massive, but when

grouped on a streetscape, as a whole they create a massive unit. Most are rectangular buildings

aligned on a grid street pattern. Many have trapezoidal plans in response to acti ve rail lines and

spurs that run throughout freight areas. The prope1ty type usually is simple in form and features

restrained decorative and ornamental treatments. Nevertheless, the property type is found in many

of the popular commercial "high style" arch itectural treatments of the era in which they were

built. It is not unusual for these bui ldings to be the design of a master architect. Except for subtle

features, the overall outward appearance of buildings in this property type does not reveal their

function.' However, all such facilities have loading docks for trucks and/or for boxcars. The

designs of those built in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century utilize large windows to

capture natural light and to provide ventilation. They typically have flat roof and masonry

construction - brick. reinforced concrete. The ir materials reflect the latest in fireproof

construction for the period in which they were built. Most use cast iron and. later, steel in their

construction. Those constructed in the twentieth century employ reinforced concrete

construction. Many erected in the mid-twentieth century. particularly those used in the metals and

warehouse industries have metal walls.

These function-specific design element:. arc noted in the discussion of the sub-types.

NPS Form 10-900-a 18-86)

OMB No. 1 02~ -00 1 8




Two types of alterations are common to this prope1ty type. The most common are the

replacement of window units with new units and blocking of windows, either with masonry, glass

block, or sheathing. Due to multiple uses and responses to continuous flooding over the years,

many of the earlier examples demonstrate widespread use of these treatments. In the majority of

cases the original openings are intact and the rhythm of windows (and bays) continues to be

readable. It is not unusual for these buildings to have additions on secondary facades.

These properties occur in districts near or adjacent to railroad freight services, usually in low

lying areas that have an even or gradual grade. In Kansas City, these areas are typically near

rivers. They usually occur as part of a grouping of numerous related commercial buildings.

[solated examples do occur, but they also have proximity to rail services. The sub-types are:

A: Industrial Manufacturing Facilities and Warehouses This property sub-type is based on associations with the original industrial manufacturing

use of the building or structure. T hese facilities incorporate space in their plans for

manufacturing and processing, offices and storage. They may have adjacent or nearby

buildings used for warehouse purposes as well. Manufacturing areas may include special

interior and exterior spaces and structures for fabrication and extractive processes. Those

erected during the late nineteenth and early twentieth century reflect po pular co mmercial

architectural styles. The larger of the buildings e rected during this period inc lude up to

eight stories reflecting d iv ision of labor on a veri ica l hierarchy. The shi ft to assembly line

production in the second decade of the twentieth century created a new horizontal form.

Build ings erected for light manufacturing after this period seldom exceeded one or two

stories . Factories erected during and after this period reflect s imp ler generic designs that

include min imal sty listic references . Unless they served as corporate or regional

headquarters. the ir entrances are not highly articulated .

Commercial Distribution Offices and Warehouses Commercial Distribution Offices and Warehouses bui ldings have associations with the

wholesale commercial businesses that developed in Kansas Ci!) in the late nineteenth

century near railroad sh ipp ing fac ilit ies. They are buildings designed to serve as district

headquarters for a particular corporation and to store and distribute the company's

products. They also served as offices and showrooms for manufacturer's representatives.

Many were designed to house the offices of\\ holesale "jobbing" companies that

NPS Fonn I 0-900-a (8-86)

0 Ml3 No 102~ ·00 1 8




purchased a variety of goods from di fferent manufactures and sold them to retai l

operations. The plan of this prope1ty type incorporated offices and storage areas and,

sometimes, showrooms. The larger examples often had adjacent or conjoined warehouse

space.

The earliest examples of this sub-type are similar in ouhvard appearance to large (four to

eight stories) manufacturing buildings and warehouses of the period. Many examples of

this sub-type, especially those built after W.W.!. were small buildings that resembled

office bui ldings, usually no more than two stories in height. Buildings in this sub-type

erected during the late nineteenth and early-to-mid-twentieth century almost always

incorporated popular academic ·'high style'" architectural treatments. Even those with

more restrained designs featured more decorative sty ling than manufacturing and

wareho use property sub-types. Whatever the style or treatment, because they often served

as regional or corporate headqua1ters, the entrances of these buildings are accentuated

and different fenestration patterns often delineate office space on the lower floors from

storage and processing areas. New buildings of this property type erected beginning in

the 1920s featured the addition of truck loading docks as well as the standard box car

loading bays, reflecting the interdependence of the railroad freighting services and the

overland truck freighting that constitutes a distinct phase in the evo lution of commercial

bu ildings associated with freighting serv ices in Kansas City.

C. Commercial Warehouses Commercial Warehouses have associations with the commercial warehousing businesses

involved in receiving and distributing raw and manufactured products that developed

near railroad shipping facilit ies in Kansas City. beginning in the late nineteenth century

They are buildings designed specifically to store products for distribution or use locally.

Many served as "transfer houses"'-- buildings designed for businesses specializing in

receiving large amounts of goods. dividing them into smaller shipments and distributing

them to retail venders or commercial businesses. Other warehouse buildings were erected

lo provide leased storage space. The plan of this property sub-type incorporates large

open storage areas with minimal office space for the facility manager. Many examples

are s imilar in outward appearance to manufacturing buildings and wholesale houses in

their large size and massing. In the first decades of the twentieth century, small one and

t\\.O story warehouse buildings occur with some frequenc;. The property sub-type

NPS Form I 0-900-a (8-86)

OMB No 102~ ·00 1 8



Section F Page 4 Railroad Related Historic Commercial and Industrial Resources in Kansas City. Missouri Jackson County, Missouri

usually is a si mple rectangular form with vague styl istic references. Its design usually

reflects popular functional commercial designs of the era in which they were built. It is

not, however, unusual for the larger examples of these buildings to be the design of a

master architect. Even so, their design was usually understated with no pronounced sense

of pedestrian entry. Because of the obvious marketing value, their design reflected the

latest in fireproof construction. New buildings of this property type erected beginning in

the 1920s featured the addition of truck loading docks as well as the standard box car

loading bays, reflecting the interdependence of the railroad freighting services and the

overland truck freighting that constitutes a distinct phase in the evolution of commercial

buildings associated with freighting services in Kansas City.

III. Significance Significant examples of this property type and sub-types represent the evolution of the period of

industrial and commerc ial expansion related to the railroad freighting industry in Kansas City

beginning in the late nineteenth century and continuing in the twentieth century through the post

World War IJ time period, and ending in 1970. As such, they reflect the evolution of

manufacturing, wholesale distribution and warehousing businesses in Kansas City. They have

direct associations to the historic contexts ·The Evolution of Kansas Ci ty Railroad Freight

Industry, 1859-1970," ··Commercial and Industrial Businesses Located ear Rail Freight

Facilities, 1865- 1970.'' and "'Commercial and Industrial Architecture in Kansas C ity"s Rai I road

Fre ight Districts 1869-1 970.'' All date from the period of s ignificance from 1865- 1970. The

property sub-types are e ligible under Criterion A for s igni ficance in Commerce locally as

representative examp les of important periods of industrial development and associated

techno logies, the wareho using business and the emergence and growth of the wholesale

d istri bution and .. jobbing .. businesses in Kansas City. Some properties are eligible under Criterion

C for local archi tectural significance as representative examples of the property type and/or

architectural style or as a contributing property to a district significant fo r particular or an

assortment of commercial architectural styles.

IV. Registration Requirements To qualify for listing under National Register Criterion A. the property must retain a strong

degree of integrity of association and location. The resource must be located in areas of Kansas

City which were associated with the manufacture, distribution and storage of goods and

merchandise for later distribution that relied on railroad freighting service::.. Because of multiple

NI'S Fonn 10-900-a (8-86)


NATrONAL REGISTER OF HISTORIC PLACES CONTINUATION SHEET

Section F Page 5

OM l3 No 102~-001 8

Rai lroad Related Historic Commercial and Industrial Resources in Kansas City. Missouri Jackson County, Missouri

uses, buildings associated with industrial and commercial districts underwent alterations, as

ownership and leasing needs required. In addition, because of their locations in areas prone to flooding, alterations to window openings, especially on ground leve l, are expected.

To be eligible for individual listing under Criterion A in the Nationa l Register these buildings should retain a high degree of architectural integrity in setting, materials. and workmanship fo r

their period of significance. They should also be an excellent example of their property type

possessing the distinct stylistic and functional characteristics that quali fy it as this property type. The integrity of features associated with the property type is especia lly important. In particular, a

high percentage of window and door elements should be extant. particularly on primary facades.

While some alterations to basement windows and ground floor fenestration is to be expected, the impact of alterations in this area should be measured against the architectural integrity and

complexity and size of the entire fa<;ade. Additions to the main build ing are acceptable if they are

subsidiary to the original and are located on secondary facades. In addition to the above

requirements, to be individually listed under Criterion C, the property must be an excellent example of a specific style of architecture retaining a high degree of integrity in setting, design

and materials that define the style.

To quali fy fo r listing under Criterion A as a contri buting property to a di strict, sufficient stylistic and structura l features should remain to link the property with its period of significance.

Specifica lly. integrity of fa9ade arrangement and fenestration is important. Individual window

openings do not have to be extant as long as the rhythm of the fenestration bays is evident and the

recession of the window opening has been maintained. Window infill and replacement should not destroy or obscure the original masonry openings. Additions to the main building are acceptable

if they are subsidiary to the original and are located on secondary facades. Alterations to primary

facades of larger buildings are acceptable if they do not alter a significant portion of the fa<;ade

and the original appearance of the fa<;ade can be restored. In addition to these requirements. co be eligible under Criterion C.. properties. as part of a larger grouping must. at a minimum. be a

representative example of a specific st) le of architecture. lntegrit) of design. materials and \\Or!..manship is necessai:. Because of their manufacturing and processing function. buildings

and structures may also be sign ificant for their engineering.

NPS Form 10-900-a (8-86)



Section F Page 6

OMB No. l Ol~-00 1 8


I. NAME OF PROPERTY TYPE: OFFICE AND SALES BUILDINGS

II. General Description

The Office and Sales Buildings property type includes commercial bu ildings that housed service

businesses or venders found in railroad industrial and commercial districts in Kansas City

beginning in the late nineteenth century. They are buildings designed for professional service

and/or vending uses. In outward appearance they do not differ from ce11ain classifications of

commerc ia l buildings fo und in other areas of the c ity. T hey are a distinct property type in freight

areas due to their function. Many served as commodity brokerage ho uses, or as small retail and

wholesale vending operations providing necessary services in the sales, receipt and disbursal of

goods.

Usually sited on one or two lots, they have a rectangular plan with the short s ide located facing

the street. Some are located on block-long raised docks. Their design incorporates public space on

the first floor and storage or secondary space on the upper floors. They are one to four stories in

height. One defining feature of the property type is a well-defined ground floor storefront that is

distinctly separate from the upper stores and reflects a difference in public/private uses. Private

use may pertain to storage space or office space or even residential space. Storefront space

indicates retail or wholesale vend ing space, lobby space, showroom or office space. A small

percentage of this property type feature high-style designs with an accentuated, sty listic entrance

rather than a storefront. The first floor is separated from upper floors by decorative devises such

as belt courses, and different fenestration treatments.

The propet1Y type's style may reflect "'high-style" architectural or commonplace commerc ia l

styles popu lar in the era in which they were bui lt. It is not, however. unusual fo r examples of

these buildings to be the des ign of an architect. They typ ically have a flat roof and masonry

construction - usually brick. Depending on the date of construction. structural elements include

the use of load bearing brick walls, cast iron. or steel. Similarly. storefronts incorporate

combinations of brick. cast iron and wood.

Two types of alterations are common to th is property type. The most common alterations are to

storefront display areas and the replacement of window units with new units or fil ling in window

openings with masonry. glass block, or sheathing. Due to the multiple uses and continuous

flooding over the years, many of the earlier examples demonstrate widespread use of these

N PS Form 10-900-3 (8-86)



Section F Page 7

OM13 No. 1 02~-00 1 8


treatments. In the maj ority of cases, the original openings are intact and the rhythm of windows

(and bays) continues to be readable. It is not unusual for these buildings to have small additions

on secondary facades

These properties occur in districts near or adjacent to railroad freight services consisting of

numerous re lated commercial buildings. usually in low-lying areas that have an even or gradual

grade. These areas in Kansas City are typically near rivers.

III. Significance

Examples of this property type represent the commercial expansion related to the railroad

freighting industry in Kansas City beginning in the late nineteenth century and continuing in the

twentieth century through the post-World War II period, ending in 1970. In particular, they

represent the types of small business concerns located in the railroad freight areas that provided

brokerage and other services as well as retail and wholesale sales venues. Many had direct

associations with receiving and distributing raw and manufactured products. As such, they have

direct associations with the historic contexts '·Commercial and Industrial Businesses Located

Near Rail Freight Facilities, 1865-1970," and "Commercial and Industrial Arch itecture in Kansas

C ity 's Railroad Freight Districts 1869-1970." All date from the period of s ignificance from l 865-

1970.

Property types w ill be e lig ible fo r des ignation under Criterion A fo r local s ignificance in

Commerce as representative examples of role of the development of commerce and trade in

Kansas City in re lation to the c ity's role as a railroad di stribution center. T hey are representative

of the evolution and role of smal l businesses providing auxilia1y services and goods in fre ight

areas. Some properties will be e ligible under Criterion C fo r architectural s ignificance as

examples of the property type and/or a particular arch itectural style.

IV. Registration Requirements

To qualify for li sti ng fo r their local significance under National Register Criteria A and/or C the

property must retain a strong integrity of association and location. The resource must be located

in areas of Kansas City which were associated with the manufacture, distribution and storage of

goods and merchandise for later distribution that relied on railroad freighting services. Because of

multiple uses. buildings associated with industrial and commercial districts underwent alterations

NPS Fom1 10-900-a (8-86)

Un ited States Department of the Interior National Park Service

NA TI ON AL REGISTER OF HISTORIC PLACES CONTINUATION SHEET

Section F Page 8

OMB No 102~-00 18


as ownership and leasing needs required. In addition, because of their locations in areas prone to

flooding, alterations to window openings, especially on ground level are expected.

To be eligible for individual listing under Criterion A in the National Register these buildings

should retain a high degree of architectural integrity in setting, materials, and workmanship for

their period of significance. T hey should also be an excellent example of their property type

possessing the distinct physical characteristics that qualify it as this property type. Because many

of these resources are one or two stories, situated on narrow nineteenth century lots and have

restrained commercial styling, it is important that the fac;ade retain its original fenestration and

spatial arrangements, in particular, the historic storefront elements or entrance treatment that

define this property type. In addition to the above requirements, to be listed as an individual

resource under Criterion C, the property must be an excellent example of a specific sty le of

architecture retaining a high degree of integrity in materials and architectural elements that define

the style.

To be listed under Criterion A in the National Register as a contributing e lement to a district, the

resource should retain sufficient stylistic and structural features to link the property with its

period of significance. Specifically, integrity of fa9ade arrangement and fenestration is important.

The primary fa9ade should have sufficient character defining elements to retain the distinct

separation of upper floo rs from the ground floor. Ind ividual window openings do not have to be

extant as long as the rhythm of the fenestration and bays is evident or the recession of the window

o pening has been maintained. Window, door and storefront infill or replacement should not

destroy or obscure original open ings. Additions to the main building are acceptable if they are on

secondary elevations and are subsidiary in size, scale and massing to the orig inal bui lding.

Alterations to primary facades of larger buildings (three to four stories) in this property type are

acceptab le if they do not alter a s ignificant portion of the fac;ade and the origina l appearance of

the fa9ade can be restored. Alterations to the fac;ade of simple small examples (one to two

stories) of this property type should be minimal and should not significantly impact the original

appearance of the building. In addition to the above requirements. buildings that are part of a

larger grouping may also be eligible under Criterion C. as contributing elements to a district as

representative examples of a specific sty le of architecture and of its property type. In both

instances integrity of design, materials and workmanship associated with its period of

significance is necessary.

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NATIONAL REGISTER Of HISTORIC PLACES CONTINUATION SHEET

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I. NAME OF PROPERTY TYPE: AUXILIARY S UPPORT RESOURCES

II. General Description Auxiliary Support Resources are buildings and structures that are important in the viability of

rail-rel iant commercial and industrial areas. They include government, utilities, and

transportation fac ilities and encompass buildings, structures, objects and sites. T hey represent the

types of support services essential for the efficient operation of freight districts and associated

industrial manufacturing, distribution and storage of raw materials and manufactured goods.

Bui ldings in this property type usually are s im ple in form and, when architectural stylistic devises

are incorporated in the design, they are usually restrained decorative treatments. In some

instances, property types associated with government or transportation services such as depots,

post offices, and fire and police stations have popular commercial "'high style" architectural

treatments of the era in which they were built. It is not unusual for these buildings to be the

design of an architect. With the exception of buildings associated with public and private utilities,

the buildings in this property type tend to be smal I one- or two-story buildings.

Because of the diversity of the buildings and structures, objects and sites that fall within this

function based property type, a number of different types of alterations are common. The most

common alterations to buildi ngs of this property type are the alteration and rep lacement of

window, door. and vehicular bay openings with masonry, glass block. or wood or metal

sheathing. Due to continuous flooding over the years. many of the earlier examples demonstrate

widespread use of these treatments. Neverthe less. in the majority of these extant buildings the

original openings are intact and the rhythm of windows and bays continues to be readable.

Because the majority of these resources have long-term use in their original fu nction. these

buildings and structures often have alterations due to changes in technology. It is not unusual for

these buildings to have small additions on secondary facades. Those resources associated with rail

transportation and the manufacture of power or the treatment of water may have an assortment of

small. one-story outbuildings and structures used for storage. to house equipment, to move raw

materials. and to house individuals overseeing operations on the site. These small-sized resources

may reflect changes in technology. They also provide clues to the original function and operation

of the resource.

NPS Form 10-900-a (8-86)

OMB No IOH-00 18



Section F Page I 0 Railroad Related Historic Commercial and Industrial Resources in Kansas City, Missouri Jackson County, Missouri

Examples of this property type occur in districts near or adjacent to railroad freight services

consisting of numerous related commercial buildings, usually in low-lying areas that have an

even or gradual grade. These areas in Kansas City are typically near rivers. They can be divided

into the following functional sub-types.

A. Government Buildings

This property sub-type includes post office and police and fire protection facilities

located in industrial/commercial areas. The buildings are seldom more than three-stories

in height and are often small in comparison to the commercial and industrial buildings of

the streetscape. Police and fire stations typically have a vehicular bay or bays on the

primary fa9ade as well as first floor administrative space. Fire stations usually have

residential space above. Post office facilities are also relatively small , often serving as

sub-stations to the area. They have public space off of the primary fa9ade and private

space to the rear and on the upper floors. They usually feature a distinct loading area

accessible to vehicular traffic. It is not unusual for these buildings to be the work of an

architect or to reflect popular architectural styles of the era in which they were e rected.

B. Utilities Buildings

Industrial buildings associated with the provision of electrical and steam power as well as

water treatment facilities can be found in commercial and industrial areas in railroad

fre ight d istricts. Both municipal and private utility compan ies erected these buildings and

structures in the late nineteenth and early t\ventieth centuries to accommodate the city's

growing industrial and com mercial needs. In Kansas C ity they are located on the edge of

commercial and industrial freight districts near a riverbank. Those involved w ith the

manufacture of power tend to be among the largest buildings in freight areas. T he larger

of these resources feature vast open interior spaces for housing equipment while office

space is limited to small areas. It is not unusual for these buildings to have smal ler

auxiliary additions or structures on secondary facades. Many have an asso11ment of small

outbuildings and structures. The most typical alteration is to the site to accommodate

changes in operation or technology. They feature masonry construction and their

restrained architectural styles reflect the era in which they were built.

NPS Form 10-900-a (8-86)

OMB No. 1 02~ -00 18


NATIONAL REGISTER OF HlSTORIC PLACES CONTlNUA TION SHEET

Section F Page I I

C. Transportation Resources


The Transportation Resources property sub-type consists of properties associated with the

provision of rail- or road-related access within railroad freight areas. Structures and

objects in this property sub-type comprise the street and rail systems found in industrial

and commercial freight districts. The buildings of this property type appear along

streetscapes or rail lines. Rail-related resources include rai I road depots, terminals, freight

houses, rail spurs, bridges, viaducts and associated infrastructure found in freighting

districts. Road-related resources include garages, roads, streets, alleys, and bridges

providing vehicular access to and within industrial and commercial rail freight areas.

Because of the diversity of this property type, there are a number of different types of

alterations that may have occurred over a period of time. Most changes are in response to

growth in industrial areas, changing patterns of usage, and the updating of infrastructure.

The most common alteration is often to the immediate setting of these resources. Road

related resources may have alterations relating to materials, s ize, and chang ing of curbs

and sidewalks. Transportation related buildings may have been a ltered due to change in

use . Alteration of these resources may reflect patterns common to the industrial and

commercial buildings in general.

III. Significance Extant buildings, structures, s ites and objects that constitute this property type represent public

and privately owned infrastructure, government agencies and utilities crucial to the operation of

freight areas. As such, they contribute to an understandi ng of how commercial and industrial

railroad freight areas functioned. Many of these resources reflect the technological evolution of

rail transpo1tation, manufacturing and utili ties. Property sub-types associated w ith railroad and

vehicular transportation are significant for their association with modes of transpoitation that

facilitated the manufacture, distribution and storage of raw materials and man-made goods. They

have direct associations w ith the historic contexts, -·The Evolution of Kansas City Rai I road

Freight Industry, 1859-1970'- and ··commercial and industrial Architecture in Kansas City's

Railroad Freight Districts 1869-1970.'' Extant examples of these buildings. structures and sites

date from the period of significance from 1865-1970.

Resources in this property type are eligible for listing on the National Register for their local

significance under Criterion A in the area of Commerce as important components in the operation

of industrial and commercial freight areas. They are significant under Criterion C in the area of

NPS Fonn 10-900-a (8-86)



Section F Page 12

OMl3 No. 101-1-001 8


Architecture and/or engineering as examples of their property type. Buildings may also be

eligible individually as representative of a particular style of architecture or for their engineering. They may contribute to the architectural integrity of a district of other property types significant

in architecture and erected during a certain time period.

III. Registration Requirements To qualify for listing under National Register Criteria A and/or C resources in this property type

must retain a strong integrity of association and location. The resource must be located in areas of Kansas City which were associated with the manufacture, distribution and storage of goods

and merchandise that rel ied on railroad freighting services.

For resources in this property type to be individually eligible for listing on the National Register

fo r their significance under Criterion A for Commerce. they must be an excellent example of their

property sub-type, possessing the distinct characteristics that qualify it as this sub-type. Because

the majority of the buildings in this property type are one or two stories or are large utilities buildings that feature restrained architectural sty ling, these resources must retain a high degree of

architectural integrity in their setting, design and materials. Alteration to large buildings in the

utility building sub-type shou ld be viewed in the context of all the areas of integrity. Additions to

bu ildings are acceptable if they are on secondary elevations or reflect techno logical changes during the period of significance. For structures and objects in th is property type to be

individually e ligible fo r listing on the National Register, they also must be an excel lent example

of their property sub-type. A high percentage of the resource's historic design, materials. form

and setting must be intact. In particular. the resource must be able to clearly and substantially communicate its original function. In addition to these requirements. in order to be eligible for

individual listing under Criterion C. the resource must be an excellent example of its particu lar

property sub-type and of a specific sty le of architecture and retain a high degree of integrity in

materials and architectural elements that define that style.

Buildings, structures. sites. and objects in this property type that are eligible for listing as contributing properties to a district must. at a minimum. retain architectural and structural

features that tie the property to its original function and period of significance . Parts of larger

systems. such as railroad tracks. must be of sufficient size and integrity to communicate their function as part of the larger system. Alterations to primary facades of larger buildings are

acceptable if they do not alter a significant portion of the fa9ade and the original appearance of

NPS Form 10-900-a (8-86)



Section F Page 13

OMB No. 102~-0018


the fa9ade can be restored. If infill of original fenestration openings occurs, it should not destroy

or obscure the original openings. The property must also be a representative example of its

property sub-type, possessing the distinct characteristics that qualify it as this sub-type. In

addition to these requirements, to be eligible fo r listing under Criterion C as part of a larger

grouping, contributing buildings must also be a representative example of a specific style of

architecture and retain sufficient integrity of design, materials and workmanship to represent the

style.

NPS Fonn 10-900-a (8-86)



Section G and H Page I


OMB No. 1024-0018


The geographical limits of the Multiple Property group are the corporate limits of the City of Kansas City, Missouri .

H . Summary of identification and Evaluation Methods

The Multiple Property list ing of Railroad Related Historic Commercial and Industrial Resources in Kansas City, Missouri is based upon the results of the city's survey plan and several cultural resource surveys. The Historic Resources Survey Plan of Kansas City , prepared by the Kansas City Landmarks Commission in association with Thoma·son and Associates Preservation Planners and T hree Gables Preservation in September l 992, provided infonnation on identified historic contexts and property types associated with transportation, industry and commerce in Kansas City. Three surveys prepared for the Kansas City, Missouri Landmarks Commission - The Central Industrial District Survey conducted by Melanie A. Betz in 1988, the Midtown Survey conducted by Sherry Piland and Ellen Ugucc ion i between l 98 1 and 1984, and the Westside Survey completed in 1994 by Richard Wilson, Laura Weston and Kristina VanVleck - provided information re lated to specific industrial and commercial enclaves along rail freight corridors in Kansas City. A Study to Determine the National Register Eligibility of Properties in the Crossroads Area Kansas City, Missouri, prepared by Historic Preservation Services, LL.C. in 1999-2000, provided updated information, rail related industrial and commercial contexts, and property types in the area around the Union Station tenn inal. In addition, the following National Register nomination forms provided in formation related to industrial and commercial bui ldings: " Jensen-Salsbery

- Laboratories," "Kansas City Union Station," "Live Stock Exchange Building," "Old Town Historic District," "Produce Exchange Building," " Wholesale District," and the " West 9 1

h Street and Baltimore Avenue District." Dr. George Ehrlich 's text, Kansas City. Missouri: An Architectural History, 1826-1990, provided additional infonnation on historical and arch itectural contexts. At the River's Bend: A History of Kansas City, Independence and Jackson County, by Sherry Lamb Schirmer and Richard McKinzie, and published in association with the Jackson County Historical Society in 1982, provided information on general themes and historic contexts.

Three historic contexts emerged that conform to three major themes that occurred within the period of sign ificance of the rail-related industrial and commercial districts and their extant property types. They are: I) The Evolution of Kansas City Railroad Freight Industry, 1859 - 1970; 2) Commercial and Industrial Businesses located near Rail freight f aci lities, 1865-1970; and 3) Commercial and Industrial Architecture in Kansas City's Rai lroad Freight Districts l 869-1970. Knowledge gained by inspection of properties located in the four major rail-related industrial and commercial areas in Kansas City, Missouri contributed to the evaluation of architectural integrity. The analysis of property types for similar resources in St. Joseph documented in "Historic Resources of St Joseph. Buchanan County, Missouri (amendmentf provided insight into criteria and integrity issues.

The National Register district nomination, "Crossroads Historic Freight District" submitted with this Multiple Property fonn is part of a phased approach to nomination of properties and districts which have direct associations with the contexts and property types established in this submission. The Kansas City Missouri Economic

NPS l'onn 10·?00-a {8-86)


NATIONAL REGIST ER OF HISTORIC PLACES CONTINUATION SH EET


OMB No 10~~-00 1 8


Development Corporation sponsored nomination of the Crossroads Historic Freight District as part of an economic development strategy to revitalize urban core commercial neighborhoods through use of incentives targeted to specific areas. The National Register program staff of the Missouri Department of Natural Resources Historic Preservation Program provided assistance in guiding this project and in the development of the Multiple Property Submission. In particular, their interest in the relationship between the development of specific industrial and commercial property types and the presence of railroad freight lines and facilities helped define the thematic approach to the MPS. The Crossroads Historic Freight District is one of numerous industrial/commercial enclaves along railroad freight lines that are undergoing active redevelopment and are part of ongoing city planning efforts in detennining incentive packages for environmental abatement and protection of historic resources that is linked to Kansas City's Comprehensive Plan, approved by the City Council in 1997. Because these properties are in areas with significant environmental contamination, identification and documentation of significant resources and property types will aid in evaluation during the federal I 06 process mandated by the ational Preservation Act. ln addition, documentation and designation is an important element in the city's economic development program, in particular the use of federa l and Missouri rehabilitation tax credit programs in conjunction with other incentive programs.

Fonn I 0-900-a (8-86)



OMB No 1024-0018

Section I Page I Railroad Re lated Historic Commercial and Industrial Resources in Kansas City, Missouri Jackson County, Missouri

Bibliography

Betz, Melanie A. "Central Industrial District Survey and Final Report." Kansas City: Kansas City, Missouri Landmarks Commission, 1988.

Brown, Theodore. A Frontier Community: Kansas City to 1870. Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1963 .

Brown, A. Theodore and Lyle W. Dorsett. K. C.: A History of Kansas City. J\!lissouri. Boulder: Pruett Publishing Company. 1978.

City Planning and Development Department Historic Preservation Management Division of Kansas City, Missouri; Thomason and Associates Preservation Planners and Three Gables Preservation. "Historic Resources Survey Plan of Kansas City." Kansas City: Kansas City, Missouri Landmarks Commission of Kansas City, Missouri, 1992.

Crandall, John. ·'Trucks, l 920-1970, From small early trucks to highway freighting." Suite I 0 I. http://www.suite I 0I.com/content/trucks--1920-1970-a1 1525. (accessed May 28, 20 I 0).

Cherington, Charles " Railroad Abandonment in New England, l 921 -37." The Journal of Land & Public Utili1y Economics. 14. no I (Feb. 1938), l. http: l/w\V\.\.jstor.org/stable/3158605 (accessed June 23 , 2010).

Droege, John A. Passenger Terminals and Trains . New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, Inc., 1916.

Ehrlich, George. Kansas City. Missouri. An Architectural History 1826-1990. Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1992.

Ehrl ich, George ... Partnership Practice and the Professionalization of Architecture in Kansas City, Missouri ." Missouri Historical Review LXXIV, 4 (July 1980).

Fitch. James Marston. American Building The H;storical Forces That Shaped ft. New York: Schocken Books. 1973.

Halberstadt, Hans and April Halberstadt. The American Train Depot and Roundhouse. Osceola, WI: Motorbooks International Publishers. 1995.

The History oflackson County, lvfissouri. Kansas City. MO: Union Historical Company. Birdsall, Williams & Company. 1881.

Kansas City Star. December I, 1926. Obituary of Col. Charles F. Morse. Kansas City Star Cl ipping Scrapbook. Missouri Valley Room Special Collections. Kansas City. Missouri Public Library.

Fenn 10-900-a [8-86)



OMl3 No I 0~~ -001 8

Section I Page 2 Railroad Related Historic Commercial and Industrial Resources in Kansas City. Missouri Jackson County, Missouri

Lund, George W. and Associates/AIA/Architects and Sarah F. Schwenk, Historical Research and Management Services, ·'Chicago and Alton Depot Independence Missouri Evaluation and Feasibility Study." Kansas City: American Institute of Architects Kansas City Chapter, July l 993.

McCandless, Perry. A History of Missouri Volume fl 1820-1860. Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1972.

Montgomery, Rick and Shirl Kasper. Kansas City An American S101y. Kansas City, MO: Kansas City Star Books, l 999.

Parsons, Stanley B. --Rai lroad Hub," At the River's Bend A History of Kansas City. Independence and Jackson County, Sherry Lamb Sch inner and Richard McKinzie. Woodland Hills Californ ia: Wi ndsor Publications Inc. in association with the Jackson County Historical Society, l 982.

Pi land, Sherry and Ellen J. Uguccioni. "Midtown Survey:· Kansas City, MO: Kansas City, Missouri Landmarks Commission, 1984.

Poppeliers, John C.; S. Allen Chambers, Jr., and ancy B. Schwartz. What Style ls it A Guide to American Architecture. Washing D.C.: National Trust For Historic Preservation Preservation Press, 1983.

Ri fk ind, Carol. A Field Guide to American Architecture. New York: Times Mi rror New American Library, 1980.

Roadway Express. l!!J12: \\ \\ \\. rundin!!un i\.~r,.,_i,,:~.,:\~ll ,;\)mpan) -h 1,t11n1: .... R11.td '' ~~or.;ydn.; -( "1rn1pa11: -I li:.ltW\ .html. (accessed 8 December 2009).

Sachs, David H. and George Ehrlich. Guide to Kansas Architecture . Lawrence: University of Kansas Press. 1996.

Schirmer. Sherry Lamb and Richard Mc Kinzie. At the River ·s Bend. A His101y of Kansas Ciry. Independence and Jackson County. Woodland Hills. California: Wi ndsor Publ ications Inc. in association \\ ith the Jackson County Historical Society. l 982.

Wilson. Richard. Laura Weston and Kristina Van Vleck ... Westside "\;eighborhood Surve) Report." Kansas Cit): Kansas Cit). Missouri Landmarks Commission, l 994.

Wilson. William H. The Cir.v Beautiful .'vfovement in Kansas Cit_1. Kan~as Cit), MO: LO\\ell Press. 1990.

Worley. Wi lliam S. ··Development of Industrial Districts in the Kansas City Region: From the Close of the Civil War to World War II." http://W\.\\.\.whumkc.edu/WHMCKC/publications/\itCPDDFlworle;-l '.?.8-93.pdf (accesscd June 18. 2010).

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